PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR BATTLE OF PULANG LUPA COMMEMORATION SEPT 13

This video shows portions of the Battle of Pulang Lupa commemoration in 2007, our first visit to the mountain site in August of that year - clearing the site and transforming it towards a meaningful celebration a month later. This blogger composed the theme song, "Awit sa Pulang Lupa" and directed the dance-drama shown in the video depicting the battle with young artists from Bangbang National High School participating.

Similar preparations are now underway for the commemoration of the 109th anniversary of the Battle of Pulang Lupa in Torrijos, Marinduque. The said battle is considered the first major victory of Filipino soldiers over their American counterparts during the second phase of the Philippine Revolution - the Filipino-American War.

It was during the term of Pres. Diosdado Macapagal in the early 60's when the Battle of Pulang Lupa was first celebrated in Marinduque. During the term of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos a presidential proclamation was issued declaring Sept. 13 "Marinduque Day". During the term of Pres. Corazon Aquino Republic Act. No. 6702 was passed declaring the same day as "Battle of Pulang Lupa Day", a special non-working holiday in the province of Marinduque. (Marinduque Day or "Araw ng Marinduque" is now commemorated on February 21, the day the island-province was declared as an independent province in 1920).

In recent years, a more thorough account of the American pacification campaign in Marinduque from 1900-1901 was published in the Journal of Military History 61 by Andrew J. Birtle. The pacification in Marinduque was characterized by extensive devastation and marked one of the earliest employments of population concentration in the Philippine War, used in Marinduque's six town centers and eventually applied in the two most famous campaigns of the war, in Batangas and in Samar.

Then Philippine Commissioner and future U.S. Prsident William Howard Taft wrote of the Marinduque campaign: "The severity with which the inhabitants have been dealt would not look well if a complete history of it were written out".

The full account of the Filipino-American War in Marinduque could be browsed in www.ulongbeach.com administered by Curt Shepard whose work as an avid researcher on Marinduque is admired by local historians from the island-province.