RP-Spanish Friendship Day celebrated today

The country celebrates the third Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day today with activities in Aurora, Iloilo and Cavite, and with such celebrations taking place in the context of the tightening relations between the two countries.

The center of the activities is in Baler, the capital town of Aurora, where the Siege of Baler, the epochal event that led to the passage of the law declaring June 30 of every year as Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day, took place in the late 1890s.

Sen. Edgardo Angara, a Baler native, said there is another celebration in Madrid, the Spanish capital, which has long honored the soldiers who stood for Spain inside the Baler church.

The highlight of the Baler celebration is the unveiling of a historical marker at Dikaloyungan, the exact area where Katipuneros in Baler organized the war against Spain, tore their cedulas and put up their headquarters in 1897. That act climaxed in the Siege of Baler.

The Dikaloyungan marker states the significance of the event and bears the names of the Katipuneros who led the fight against Spain.

Angara, Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Jaime Yambao, National Historical Institute director Ludivico Badoy and Jaime Gonzales, deputy chief of mission of the Spanish Embassy in Manila, will lead the unveiling ceremony. Aurora Gov. Bella Angara-Castillo and lone district Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara will also attend the rites.

At the Aurora State College of Technology (ASCOT), noted historians held yesterday discussions on the aspects and dimensions of Philippine-Spanish relationship that were about friendship, amity and cooperation, all in the spirit of the Friendship Day celebration.

The theme was "Amistad Duradera: Mga Larangan ng Pagtatagpo" and the participants were Dr. Ferdinand Llanes, Dr. Luisa Camagay, Dr. Evelyn Miranda, Dr. Jaime Veneracion and Milagros Guerrero, all noted writer-historians.