An Old Standard

Retired U.S. Navy Commander Rudy Asercion wasn't sure what he might find when he rummaged through the swords, guns and medals in the trophy room of San Francisco's War Memorial Veterans Building last summer. But the 63-year-old Vietnam War veteran knew what he was looking for: exhibits for a local ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of General Douglas MacArthur's return to the Philippines at the close of World War II. Instead, the third-generation Philippine-American may have discovered something of enormous historical value: a brittle, stained satin flag that the Philippine National Historical Institute reportedly says is "most likely" the nation's first. That would be the one designed in 1897 by General Emilio Aguinaldo while in exile in Hong Kong, and unfurled the following year when he declared independence from the U.S.—starting the first Philippine republic. The U.S. crushed the independence movement four years later, and the flag vanished.

Records indicate that the flag was probably presented by Commodore George Dewey, a hero in the battle for the Philippines, to then-U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt after the war. If Asercion has indeed found Aguinaldo's flag, "it is an incredible artifact with immense historical value that has been sitting forgotten," says San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Geraldo Sandoval, who has sponsored a motion to have the War Memorial authenticate the discovery. Not surprisingly, Philippine officials now want the flag back. "It opens up a lot of sensitive things in our relationship," says Sen. Richard Gordon, who, along with representatives of the National Historical Institute, visited the flag in San Francisco. "Returning it would be a sign of our friendship, of the relationship that has matured." Will the flag, like MacArthur in 1944, return to the Philippines?