For the nth time, display vertical flag correctly

Like a heckler, the bright red field of the flag behind President Aquino when he delivered his last State of the Nation Address distracted me. It seemed like it was calling attention yet again to be returned to its proper place in the flag.

I have argued many times before that the red field on the viewer’s right of a vertically displayed flag in times of peace is incorrect; that the practice (for lack of law) before the Pacific War which started on Dec. 8, 1941, was simply to turn the flag clockwise to vertical, thus in times of peace, the blue field was on the viewer’s right; that the amendment to Republic Act No. 8491, the flag law, signed by President Fidel V. Ramos in 1998 wrongly institutionalized the wartime practice instead of the peacetime practice (blue field on viewer’s right).

When the Pacific War ended in 1945, the colors of the flag were not immediately reverted. It was only in 1950, when President Elpidio Quirino issued his Executive Order No. 321, that the blue field was restored to the top of the flag in times of peace. But his order did not include the vertical display of the flag for lack of precedent on the matter. So the red field continued to be on the viewer’s right even during peace time.

Then in 1998, President Fidel V. Ramos signed the amendment embedding the wrong practice into the law.

I feel frustrated that nobody, not even those of my generation who lived through the times mentioned above, has cared to react. I am frustrated that the historical commission did not confirm my statement despite the glaring evidence in its historical marker on the house of President Emilio Aguinaldo in Kawit, Cavite, which shows the vertical Philippine flag with its blue field on the viewer’s right.

I am frustrated that President Ramos, a former army general, did not catch the error. Could it have been due to the Filipinos’ “hindi bale na, puede na” habit? I am frustrated that President Aquino did not have the error corrected in his daang matuwid administration. It would have offset the minuses in his administration.

So until somebody else picks up the fight (hopefully another senior citizen who can still remember), we will have to suffer the erroneous practice of having the flag’s red field on the viewer’s right in times of peace.

The correct way of displaying our flag in vertical position should remind everybody that we are not at war now with anybody, especially China.

—AMADO F. CABAERO, [email protected]