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kulay-ng-banaag · 1 year

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☆ LOST & FOUND ☆: What A Concept!

CW: war, blood, death, sharp objects

I revised the comic art. Fixed anatomy here and there, adjusted lighting, BACKGROUNDS!

Working on this comic series will be slowed down significantly. The results of Halalan 2022 was crushing, to say the least. That and college.

I disliked having to look back at the stuff I made, even if it was for good intentions. One hot year since first posting the comic, I allowed myself to truly peruse this comic again. Not only did it resonate still, but it also resonated so much stronger now too. Who would have thought I needed to remind myself too?

I was, and up to now, in disbelief that I could pull off an insanely ambitious project, for a hobbyist of my skill level, in such an unrealistically short amount of time (never again!!!). Ironically, it was after I drilled myself into making the comic that my art style got cleaner and more consistent (I wasn't when it came to characters' faces because I was still figuring out how exactly I want to draw them).

Only the writing was left unchanged. I would crawl into a ball of shyness still about the comic, but nonetheless, I remained very proud of it. I also made a few corrections regarding historic information here and there, as well as dug up as many primary sources as I could access. What amazed me was that there was still no need to make any changes to the story.

At the end of it all, I had no regrets about following my instincts to let this comic happen. Not only did I learn a great deal about the process but I also grew to love it. The only thing stressful about it was the fact that I had to juggle this literal passion project with other commitments. If I had less of the latter, you would see me grind through my art.

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First off, I hoped that the cover illustration did not give off the impression of a 1Px2P self-cest doujin (I don't go there lmao). I was aiming to show the polarities in Piri’s character, the “blue vs. red” side if you would. The title font I used was Kawit.

I initially wanted to use the blue uniform for that spicy color contrast when it got stained in blood. I chose the khaki shade instead for insurrection!Piri because the lighter shade looked better in juxtaposition with his canon (present-day) sailor uniform.

I realized too late that the cape colors, in trying to create the illusion of the PH flag, did not follow the correct vertical orientation. I did not want to alter the entire drawing anymore so I left it that way. It appears in the correct orientation if you flip the image around, though! HA!!

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Piri took the bus because god forbid I had to draw him driving solo through Manila traffic. No thank you.

Piri could drive but he did not own a car. No matter how bad it got, he was content with opting for public transportation. He was partial to walking on his own two feet (in more ways than one).

Piri was very clearly tired, a far cry from his canon bubbly persona. Understandably so when he took an early bus trip. Yet even after hitting up a chat with friends, he was clearly worn down emotionally too.

I set these panels in violet, the color produced when you mixed blue and red. To be specific, I was aiming for the blue-violet end.

When I decided to make a comic about a nation’s flag, I never figured that I would mean that in more ways than one. I swear my choices of color palettes for scenes were pure serendipity!

Ask any Filipino what the blue side of our flag means and chances are peace will be the first word we'll tell you.

Piri wanted to tune himself out from the rest of the world. He wanted to spend just one day getting some “peace and quiet” for himself. He was very good at keeping up a face. For peace’s sake, he had to; but even in those quiet moments, one did not always truly feel “at peace.” Piri was still bracing himself for how he would be spending the rest of the day and it left him a bundle of mixed emotions.

At least he seemed convincingly cheerful enough to his peers.

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At last, Piri was free of the long bus journey out of the metro. He deserved to chill before diving into the moment of angst!

The street snack he had was kwek-kwek.

(For shit and giggles, let me share this innuendo of a song.)

Featured Locations (L to R)

Kennon Road (there was a view spot for picture-taking)

Session Road (a shopping district; I used a photo of the night market situated there)

Burnham Park (it had a lake where visitors could go boating)

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I initially wanted to write the text message in Tagalog but I was wary that it might be too harsh, even if the harshness was the point (it sounded a lot harsher in Tagalog, believe me).

It looked like it was a day of harsh noon sunlight. The scorching heat of the sun was always a nuisance even for those born and bred in this humid, tropical archipelago. It definitely got to Piri.

It was definitely the type of day where one would rather be hidden away from the burning sunlight, lest it shone on something one would rather keep to themselves.

I did not mind Himaruya using funky “unnatural” eye colors for the SEAsians (even though that was usually on drawing funky art with funky palettes) since flipping on canon was a free choice. Alas, I could not resist going off my own way too.

You know how dark brown eyes can sometimes appear golden (technically amber) when facing bright sunlight? Funny how that color sure revealed itself in a bad time. Funny also that gold was the color of the sun in the PH flag. I’m telling you all, Piri had a sunny disposition in more ways than one.

(Y’alls really thought I’d stop at the blue and red?)

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Now we could see the reason Piri went to Baguio for his birthday.

The location was a real museum that housed some of our earliest flags for public viewing! The name of the place?... The Aguinaldo Museum.

Oh to not live under someone else’s shadow.

I owed all Filipinos that read my comic my sincerest apologies for this part. This museum was different from the Aguinaldo Shrine in Cavite. It was specially built because the colder temperatures of Baguio made for an ideal environment for textile preservation.

Had it not been for the pandemic, I would have made a spontaneous trip to confirm the interior layout for myself. Instead, I relied on photographs and videos from bloggers who made their own visits. What I c ould vouch for certain was that the flag has to be kept in a dark room because old textiles faded from the sun's UV rays. I suppose they were aiming for a more serious mood with the choice of room lighting color.

It was definitely violet again. Red-violet this time.

Ask any Filipino what the red side of our flag means and, chances were, war was the first word we answered, but I wanted to go for a more neutral term: Conflict.

One could only imagine the inner conflicts Piri was going through at that moment, especially when he knew the truth.

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(I am not yet a legit historian and the pandemic severely limited how much more I could gather as someone who also likes to read history for leisure so I had to completely rely on what I could find online only.)

Long story short for my non-Filo followers, plenty of us Filipinos (if not most) considered Aguinaldo a very problematic figure in our history. It would not be the full picture, but the research I picked up for the comic would help give the gist as to why.

First off, my reasons for covering up the faces of the cameos of historical figures were:

I wanted to avoid drawing Aguinaldo’s face. By extension I had to apply the same trick for the others to avoid bias.

I got lazy to draw so many faces.

It was a storytelling trick of sorts by diverting the reader’s attention to Piri instead; “Hey, look away from these guys and go back to the real star of the story that’s also in the same panel!”

This was Piri’s story after all. This was his story.

The featured precolonial flag was allegedly the pennant of the Tondo polity*. Allegedly because I could not trace back primary sources to back it up.

*The term used was “bayan” and it was more leniently used to refer to any of the independent states that co-existed during the precolonial era (haha, “independent”). Think of how multiple German states existed pre-unification. No, there were no monarchies (in the strictest sense) in precolonial Philippines, so technically Tondo, Maynila, etc. were not “kingdoms.” Additionally, precolonial Philippines in my own lore also did not go by the name “Tondo.” He does have a tito Tondo.

I decided to feature that flag anyway because, even if it might not necessarily be true, there must be a reason Piri has that particular memory (*coughs* Andres Bonifacio was a Tondo boy).

In the flashback sequence, the first flag seen was the version of the Katipunan flag first shown at the 1897 Naic Assembly.

This was not the first flag of the Katipunan. I depicted a later version because the first one constituted the organization's acronym in white on a red background. The complete name of the organization was: Ang Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (The Supreme and Venerable Association of the Children of the Nation).

I can assure you all that the Katipunan was NOT the same organization nor had any connections whatsoever with a certain white supremacist group.

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The guy with (baby Katipunero!) Piri was Feliciano Jocson. Some claimed he was inspired to draft up a design after seeing the flag of Cuba in the newspaper (that’s right, folks. Cuba/Piri valid!). Sadly, there was no info on the precise drafts that Jocson had, but one could clearly see how the del Pilar flag took cues from that of Cuba. It was called such because Gregorio del Pilar (aka Goyo) made one for himself as a treat for his rank promotion.

“Wait, so how did it go from Jocson to del Pilar?” Alas, I wish I knew because there was frustratingly little information to be found on Jocson, even though he was supposed to be one of the Katipunan’s leading members. He was big enough of a deal that he was bound to strike a chord when he protested the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was only agreed upon amongst Aguinaldo’s inner circle.

It did not help that Jocson simply went off the radar when del Pilar was sent to arrest him.

Del Pilar was loyal to Aguinaldo.

ADDENDUM (01/26/23)

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While exiled in Hong Kong, Aguinaldo approached Marcela Agoncillo to create the flag closest to the version we would know today.

Aside from the fact that I wanted Piri to be present for the making of the flag, he had his reasons for joining Aguinaldo in Hong Kong, which I ought to elaborate on in a future comic.

Piri went fabric shopping with Lorenza, Agoncillo’s eldest daughter. Also, did you know about how Filipinos pointed with their lips? That was what he was doing. 😗👉

The flag was first flown at the port in Cavite, just shortly before the Battle of Alapan (May 28, 1898). Then it was flown again on the declaration of Independence in Kawit, on 612 1898.

Look at how happy Piri was now that he got a flag of HIS OWN.

Did he get to own it though?

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It was a fairly big deal when there were testimonies that Jocson was the real brain behind the (early) design. Although Aguinaldo never claimed that he designed the flag, his contemporaries had the tendency to give him the credit for it, if only because he was the one who made the pitch to Agoncillo.

However, that only partly explained why anyone would put the original flag under the custody of a space dedicated to Aguinaldo. 2 flags contested for the title of being the true original: the Aguinaldo-Suntay flag, and the Agoncillo flag.

(L: top - Aguinaldo-Suntay, bottom - Agoncillo; R: Agoncillo, closeup)

The Aguinaldo-Suntay flag had additional embroidery between the stripes. The Agoncillo flag had faces drawn on both the sun and the stars, and these were also aligned to the flag vertically.

“But wouldn’t the real og flag be the one named Agoncillo? Why do we have to acknowledge the other one?” That was because:

It was still one of our flags.

The thing was that Aguinaldo himself was the one who reported that the PH flag went missing. Twice.

I had to preserve my joke from the original Twitter thread.

In 1919, he said it got lost within the Caraballo mountain range in Nueva Vizcaya. Then in 1925, he wrote to an officer that it got lost along Tayug (Pangasinan). In both instances, he mentioned that the losses occurred during his retreat from the Americans.

The Philippine-American War was from 1899-1902.

Now that made it easier to trace back events! I included a map reference of troop movements as well as one I redrew myself in Google Maps to show where the Caraballo Mountains were.

It would seem that Aguinaldo never went anywhere near that portion of the region…

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After the war, one of Marcela’s daughters stepped forward to claim that Aguinaldo actually had the flag safely stored away in a vault. The flag was conveniently brought out for display at the museum. Additionally, the current extant copy of the Agoncillo flag might only be a replica of the “true original,” if only because its threads were found to be cotton and contradicted statements that the original flag was made of silk.

To add to the confusion, one of Aguinaldo’s own descendants claimed that the flag loss was a red herring from Aguinaldo himself. However, a flag (if not the flag) was returned to Aguinaldo circa 1930. Since then, he never let it out of his sight, to the point that he would sleep next to it. When he passed away, his daughter found the flag under his deathbed.

Personally, I believe that Aguinaldo took after del Pilar and made his own banner as well, but even I could not find information on when the Aguinaldo-Suntay flag was made. In my frustrations to piece it all together, I came up with that banger line on conflicting narratives.

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Well wasn’t that a heck of a ride through memory lane? Sadly, it was time for Piri to go home (but wasn’t he already?), but not without buying the promised barrel man!

He left by sunset because it was prettier to draw and it made the “keeping things in the dark” line slap harder. A play on finding closure, in finding peace in all that red.

Remember what the red stood for?

Oops, another flashback!

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Aguinaldo wanted to transfer his base from Tarlac to Bayombong. He sent some troops, alongside a substantial portion of their equipment and supplies, ahead of him to clear the path. Tayug just happened to be along the way.

The 2nd Division scouts of the American army successfully intercepted the message. Spanish prisoners assured their American liberators that its writing was true. Gen. Henry Ware Lawton was determined to mobilize their troops as quickly as possible, in spite of the serious deficit in supplies.

(William H. Young was under Lawton's command.)

The American side had reasons to be hesitant about the plan that was put forth. They refused to believe that Aguinaldo would give up the railroad, which was used to mobilize his supplies as well as the PH Republic's treasury. It was akin to Aguinaldo abandoning his own resources. The top priority was to capture Aguinaldo because even the American troops themselves could not afford to waste any more of their already diminished resources.

Before I continue, let's grab the troop movement map again and take another look at the purple and red lines.

Notice how there were two places named Bayombong (red line, crossing Tayug) and Bayambang (purple line, with a railroad path).

Notice how Aguinaldo's route initially followed the same as Lawton's, but diverged. It was easy to assume that the change of course was to avoid the Americans at all cost, yet they themselves had a hard time tracking him. Why?

[ This next part is my personal and non-professionally backed opinion. Believe me, I wish I had the academic credentials and the freedom to dig for evidence of the PH troops' war plans from their side. ]

Perhaps that tiny linguistic difference was an intentional red herring. The O and A in Filipino can actually be tricky to discern, depending on your enunciation. My reference did not specify either if the intercepted message was a written or a verbal account (and if the latter, it was extracted from the captured individuals). Hence, the possible mix-up between Bayombong and Bayambang. Perhaps the Americans were wrong to assume that Aguinaldo was unwilling to travel without his supply line, which would also be a serious risk on his part. It meant he was willing to buy time for himself at the cost of his own resources, both material and human. Piri would have thought of it as an outrageous plan as well. And that was why he chose to chaperone his countrymen over his general. Who was going to protect them?

In the end it was a risk that paid off for the Americans.

(Col. Henry Walton Wessels was under Lawton’s command).

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It was noteworthy that Aguinaldo stated the flag got lost somewhere in Tayug, but not necessarily in Tayug.

I imagined it might have been with someone already in transit out of Tayug. Someone who was busy leading his fellow soldiers. Someone who was determined to see his people outlast the war.

I definitely owed every reader an apology if they were still rattled by this section of the comic. It was a huge risk to let this (partly) be a war story, all the more through the lens of Hetalia. I am not ignorant of the shit people in this fandom were (and are) capable of.

However, I have since learned that it is one thing to be an ally for social justice, and it is a whole ‘nother nuisance when one must always feel the need to intervene for others for the sake of honoring their idea of peace and justice.

Now if that ain’t the Philippine-American War in a nutshell.

(Just a nutshell. Someday I’ll come back around to include HWS America’s perspective. I condemn US imperialism as much as I condemn misinformation arising from avoidance of the US’ prominent role in PH history.)

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At the end of the day, this was still a story about the flag, about the road to independence. As shitty as Aguinaldo and the war crimes of the Americans were, they all played a part in what independence meant for Piri.

What right do we have to dictate his story for him?

I would admit this section was where the fiction came in. I did not find specifics on the number of lives lost on both sides (with the Tayug takeover at least). In fairness, it was not like any of us would know. We were not there for whatever happened that day.

I was aware that war/armed conflict was a very sensitive topic and even I was not too keen on defaulting to the peace/war meanings for the stripes on the PH flag. Thankfully there is one more analogy for the red side that I wanted to raise: Blood.

I knew terms such as “patriotism” and “valor” were used, but they were often in a phrasing along the lines of “being unafraid to defend one’s homeland up to the last drop of blood.” As honorable as it was, it did not change the fact that it’s a double-edged sword (heh), especially for Piri.

The Tayug takeover was in November 1899. Antonio Luna was assassinated in June that same year. One of the most memorable characters in Philippine history, in Piri’s story, gone.

By then, Piri was at breaking point.

Morale tanked and the losses just kept climbing. Almost immediately after, Aguinaldo switched to guerrilla warfare. A last-resort tactic that was only utilized when the troops were toeing the breaking point. When people were desperate to win, so desperate that nothing would stop them, no matter the risks.

Look at all that bloodshed. Who would have thought that someone who always seemed to look at the bright side of things could also retain a vicious side?

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Forever grateful that I dug deep enough to confirm that this fight happened in the afternoon. Look at Piri eyes burning brightly like the golden sun, burning in righteous fury.

Bayang magiliw po talaga.

The title of the national anthem was Lupang Hinirang. I just cited the opening line.

Furthermore, the official translation was “land of the morning,” but the literal translation of magiliw was “tender/affectionate/friendly.” It was an apt description for when one saw the morning sun rising over the horizon, but sunlight was also not always gentle. Soaking in too much of it could harm you.

Oof, now that was a roast.

FIRE MAY BE THE GIVER OF LIFE BUT IT COULD ALSO DESTROY!

BEWARE OF FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN LEST YOU BURNED YOURSELF OUT!

Okay that’s enough sun symbolism.

The blood splatters were exaggerated. I let it be that way.

We were still seeing things from Piri’s perspective. You would not see clearly when you were in a frenzied rage. It did not help that seeing all the blood just enabled it too. He surely bottled up his bloodlust for far too long…

(Am I a freak for playing with this sort of character complexity. Yeah. Bluntly, I'm too desensitized when it came to emotional extremities. I learned to live with it. The same could be said for these nation trashbags--I mean, personifications.)

☼ ☼ ☼ Letting Piri go into sword-slashing mode was a personal artistic choice.

I was always finding accounts of how the Americans had the superior guns while the Filipinos had the superior knives. Bolo knives, specifically.

Admittedly the only films I had seen that depicted this period were Heneral Luna (2015) and Goyo (2018), but in both films, even if characters had swords on their person, not once did any of them show our prowess with the blade. Not once. By my artistic hand, I elected to feed myself.

I knew jackshit about how firearms work but I highly doubted that anyone could aim right with a rifle when they just lost an eye. Besides, if Piri’s got a sword on him and he still got the moves, rusty as they may be compared to ~300 years ago, what was stopping him?

“But they used BOLO KNIVES, not SWORDS.” Well clearly Piri’s got his own sword!

Because he’s the anime protagonist. I’m kidding. Don’t worry. It would not be the last appearance of that particular blade.

Story for another day.

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Don’t you just hate it when you jolted awake from your ride coming to a sudden halt, because your bus driver had no manners at the wheel?

The one blessing to that was that Piri snapped out of a nightmare. A war flashback, if you will.

Piri decided he had enough of the bus and rode a jeep instead. I wanted to respect the repeating flag symbolism throughout the story with the choice of background music playing.

Piri then got off to buy some birthday mamon, like the frugal bakla he was (mamon was also a euphemism for gay men).

Commuting in the PH was not “one-way.” More often than not, people had to take more than one mode of transportation. Sometimes, that mode of transportation was a trike ride that happened to be loaded with neon lights and played music on full blast. It was not all terrible, but it could be overwhelming at times.

Finally, our boy was home sweet home (always has been).

Incorporating tarsier anatomy into my art style had since worked out beautifully. I wanted to draw Pien with the same cheeky little gremlin energy as this scientific illustration.

Most photos show them at rest, but look at this little fella ready to square up!

I wished I showed more of the next room but the details were not necessary to this particular story. I would confirm it was a storage room. My own homage to the iconic storage chapter/episode (Ang Paglilinis ng Bodega AHAHAHAKLSGJHLDKSHASKSKSKSKSKSKS).

Look at all that blue in the room! What was Piri going through this time?

The blue side of the flag stood for peace, but what else came to mind when thinking of what the color represented? What were the odds that sadness was one of those other meanings?

HWS PHILIPPINES?!?!!! A MAN CANONICALLY BRIGHT AND CHEERFUL AND ENTHUSIASTIC AND ALWAYS SO FULL OF ENERGY AND LIFE AND OPTIMISM??????? SAD?!?!?!?!?!?!! DEPRESSED?!?!?!?!!!!!!

Yeah, like any human being would, and yet he was also not like any human being.

It was not just any kind of sadness too. It was melancholy from having to face the truth once more. The truth that, even after all these centuries, Piri still did not know what kind of person he should be.

Man, do I love making these dirt children go into a major identity crisis. The comic was the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. I mean, come on! The flag! The very object that represented these nations! What represented them! What defined them!

Y’all really thought I wanted to draw insurrection!Piri for the sake of depicting him going absolutely feral? Nah, that was totally one of the reasons, just not the only reason.

I held no hate for canon Piri’s personality at all because it was still so relatable as a Filipino! Yet here be a Filipino Hetalia fan clowning around by providing a more polarizing side of Piri. So unfamiliar. So divergent from his canon, true personality (or what you know to be true). It was almost as if he lost his mind at that moment.

But that was still Piri, right? Of course!

It just so happened that what happened, happened. People underwent certain emotions more intensely in certain situations. Welcome to the human condition.

Although he was not exactly human either.

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This was also me acknowledging two things: How Filipinos were known for our resilience in the face of adversity, and how even that unyielding resilience could backfire.

Even that resilience nearly killed Piri himself. He nearly burned himself out. He nearly lost himself in the process.

But how could we even gauge that? Just how much did we know about Piri? As a person? Exactly what kind of person was Piri supposed to be? What happened when we took away all the things that maked Piri "the Philippines"? Who are we left with?

"Hold up! Shouldn’t we just leave that decision up to Piri himself?" But you know how we say it was the people that made up a nation?

How ironic it was to always let other people make decisions for you. It makes you think if Piri truly “won" his independence.

If reading all those conflicting narratives made you feel frustrated, imagine how it was for Piri. How tiring it must be to have your narrative stolen, lost, and forgotten, over and over again.

For all the inquiries on his history, why hadn’t anyone asked for his story?

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Now you know how this became a 612 story. A story about independence. A story about the PH flag. How flags are born as a symbol of independence.

Let’s go check back in on the very person for whom that flag stood for.

Another flashback! Look at that sunrise! Or maybe not, Piri sure was not in the mood.

There was the red again. A nicer kind, too. And so was the warrior side of Piri you’ve all been formally introduced to, except you were seeing a warrior that was clearly exhausted and weary.

I won’t lie, letting the flag be returned like that felt too easy of a plot move, but I figured I would rather uphold the mystery.

It begged the question: Why would he just withhold the truth like that? Why didn’t he ever speak up? Why would he make that choice.

...Because he can. Let him.

Why not? That was what he had been fighting for all these years, right? To be his own person?

So what if you just saw how ruthless he could be? It was still Piri. It was not like the rest of him would completely go away as well. Besides, what choice did he have at that time?

It’s agonizing how, for all the times people invoked his name in their actions, Piri never seemed to be allowed to do things for himself. Maybe that was why he would rather keep quiet about the truth. How, all these years, he had been keeping what was rightfully his.

Because the bigger truth was that he still did not know what it means to be independent. He still did not know what it meant to be his own person. He still did not know what kind of person he should be, or wanted to be.

Bayan o sarili? Eh paano na ba kung ikaw mismo ang bayan?

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Was the flag really just returned to him like that? Who knows? You sure don’t.

Even Piri was surprised at how that happened, but who cared how it happened? At least it was returned.

It’s funny how things you lost would find their way back to you when you stopped looking for them.

I scrapped this to save on page count, but I wanted to show Agoncillo rushing to the McCulloch ship (that Aguinaldo boarded on the trip back to Cavite) the flag in time. It was sewn within 5 days, with little sleep on her end, but she was successful in personally handing over the flag to Aguinaldo.

I’m flipping on that fact and changing it to Piri. IT’S HIS FLAG AFTER ALL!

The dialogue I had in mind was Piri asking Agoncillo what the rush was for and she responded that she had just finished the flag.

You would then see the joy in Piri’s eyes but then he realized that Agoncillo pushed herself in finishing it as soon as possible. He would tell her that there was no need to, but she reassured him that she would be alright. It was all for him.

Once again, I dissed on the actual orientation of the flag, but damn did I go hardcore with the imagery!

THE SUN SHINING BEHIND CENTER PIRI! PIRI BASKING IN THE WARMTH OF A NEW DAY DAWNING FOR THE RED! PIRI MAKING PEACE WITH THE UNCERTAINTY FOR THE BLUE!

"Uncertainty?"

This was still a story about the flag, and who it represented. I will always love and cherish canon Piri unconditionally, but I swear there was so much more to his character. It helped when you knew too well that our flag had a red side too. Thinking about it now, it was weird how Filipinos' automatic first response in describing what the red represents was war.

Thank god Pixiv has an R-18G option. This was not something minors would grasp immediately, but man my people had been through a lot.

By the time our flag (in the form we know today) came to be, we literally just got out of one war only to get dragged into another. It made you think how much of a formative period that had been for Piri.

Almost as if he was in a much bigger war with himself.

“WITH HIMSELF?!”

This was also a story about independence. Our fight for independence. Piri’s fight for independence. His independence. But what did that even mean when he could not even figure out what kind of person he wanted to be?

It grew worse because if you thought jumping from one war to another in roughly half a year was bad enough, so much simultaneous in-fighting happened. It showed in how our own flag came to be, and that was just a fragment of that in-fighting. PH history was littered with inner conflicts.

Imagine how all that affected Piri.

Imagine just how tired and frustrated and progressively angry he must have been in having to deal with his own people throwing fire at each other over and over again due to all of the conflicts of interest in how best to win their independence. His independence. Imagine how much harder it got for Piri to keep to himself. How much it hurt to never openly admit his feelings. How he hated that he could never decide for himself to do. How he could not do whatever he wanted. How he never knew know what it felt like to be independent. Be his own person. Be a person. Maybe that’s one more reason why he snapped so hard in that fight.

And why shouldn’t he fight back? Didn’t he have every right to fight back? To stand up for himself? To take back what was rightfully his? His right to self-sovereignty that was stolen from him?

“BUT WHAT HE DID WAS WRONG!”

(I pull a reverse Uno card.) So now YOU get to decide for him too? YOU get to decide how Piri should have acted? YOU get to decide what kind of person Piri should be because all you know is his good-vibes-only side?

(Did I just go meta as an author? Yes I did. I clowned you all.)

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Our flag had two stripes, after all. Both with their own meanings.

What did they mean for Piri? What did he know about the kind of person he was supposed to be? Or wanted to be?

It sounded like he did not have the answer to that question, even up to now. All the more when he lived his life letting others make the decisions for him. He had seen all the stupid shit his own people were (and are) capable of. He was not ignorant.

Yet, even with all the shitty people, there were still the good ones too. Piri would remember them all. Even if their names faded out of the history books, or were excluded. Maybe all Piri needed was a gentle reminder to himself. That he did not have to go through it all alone. That it was normal to feel uncertain about yourself. That even if life was full of uncertainties, there were some things that were a certain keeper. Like the people that got you to where you were now. Like your own chaotic circle of friends that sure know how to brighten your day. Your found family. The bonds that were thicker than blood. Maybe he just needed to remind himself that hope was not lost.

☼ ☼ ☼

Be glad I preferred happy endings.

I was aware that if we started the count at 1898, Piri would be 123 years old. To me, Piri was technically much older. He had been, physically, a young adult for a really long time.

Would Piri do a live video in that kind of lighting setup? Absolutely. It was all about the aesthetic. How else could I pull off that banger fade-out too?

The gold was back too. Safe to say he still got that fire in him. Quite the heartwarming reminder.

The best birthday treat.

☼ ☼ ☼

Image Credits

Biomedical Ephemera (Tumblr), boyingski (Blogspot), Emilio Aguinaldo Museum (Facebook), Friend Cheap Menu, National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Philippine Cultural Education, Presidential Museum & Library (Malacañang), Tempo PH, watawat(dot)net - BROKEN SITE, Wikipedia, Yahoo! News (article by Norman Sison, VERA Files), ZEN Rooms

Sources

(The links for the Presidential Museum & Library are broken, but the uniform infographic has been preserved on archive.org)

Agbayani, Eugemio, III. “The Original Philippine Flag, according to Miss Marcela Agoncillo.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. June 6, 2017. https://nhcp.gov.ph/original-philippine-flag-according-miss-marcela-agoncillo/. Alvarez, Amorico M., and Nicolas G. Ricafrente. “The First Unfurling of the Philippine National Flag.” Philippine Center for Masonic Studies. Accessed March 01, 2022. http://www.philippinemasonry.org/first-unfurling-of-the-philippine-flag.html. Arevalo, Carminda R. “The Philippine Flag: Symbol of our Sovereignty and Solidarity.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. September 6, 2012. https://nhcp.gov.ph/the-philippine-flag-symbol-of-our-sovereignty-and-solidarity/. Cabreza, Vicente. “In Baguio museum, flags celebrate victories,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 12, 2015. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/697868/in-baguio-museum-flags-celebrate-victories. “A Graphic Timeline of the Philippine-American War (Part Three).” Presidential Museum and Library. Accessed May 29, 2022. http://malacanang.gov.ph/8298-a-graphic-timeline-of-the-philippine-american-war-part-three/. “Infographic: Army of the First Philippine Republic.” Presidential Museum and Library. Accessed May 29, 2022. http://malacanang.gov.ph/76540-infographic-army-of-the-first-philippine-republic/. Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine American War, 1899-1902. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Mallari, Perry Gil S. “The Bolomen of the Revolution,” The Manila Times, June 14, 2014. https://www.manilatimes.net/2014/06/14/sports/the-bolomen-of-the-revolution/104227. Meder, William A. “Civilizing 'Em with a Krag : the Story of a Company of U.S. Volunteers in the Philippine Insurrection,” 1978. https://archive.org/details/civilizingemwith00mede. Melendez, Christian Bernard A. “Kalayaan Over Karangyaan - Pursuing Independence in Exchange for Personal Wealth.” National Historical Commission of the Philippines. June 8, 2021. https://nhcp.gov.ph/kalayaan-over-karangyaan-pursuing-independence-in-exchange-for-personal-wealth/. National Historical Commission of the Philippines. Twitter Post. June 9, 2020, 6:00 PM. https://twitter.com/nhcpofficial/status/1270294568504717312?s=21. Ocampo, Ambeth R. “Original or not, it’s still flag of our fathers,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 12, 2011. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/14136/original-or-not-it%E2%80%99s-still-flag-of-our-fathers. Project Vinta. 2020. “On June 9, 1868, patriot and pharmacist Feliciano Jocson was born in Quiapo Manila.” Facebook. June 9, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/pvinta/posts/2687612368152686. “Rout of the Filipinos: American Troops Scatter the Rebels in All Directions.” The Evening Times, November 13, 1899. https://www.gastearsivi.com/gazete/evening_times_dc/1899-11-13/1. Sexton, William Thaddeus. Soldiers in the Sun: An Adventure in Imperialism. The Military Service Publishers Company: 1939. https://archive.org/details/soldiersinthesun000472mbp. Sison, Norman. “An unflagging symbol of nationhood.” Yahoo! News, June 21, 2014. https://ph.news.yahoo.com/blogs/the-inbox/unflagging-symbol-nationhood-232426481.html. United States Philippines Division War Department. Report of E. S. Otis, U. S. Volunteers, on Military Operations and Civil Affairs in the Philippine Islands 1899. (1899). https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=K08tAAAAIAAJ. —. Annual Reports of the War Department: Volume 1, Part 1. U.S. Government Printing Office: 1899. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hTcaAAAAMAAJ.

#historical hetalia #hws philippines #war cw #blood cw #death cw #sharp objects cw #footnotes: LOST AND FOUND #arc: revolution #arc: contemporary #long post

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