PHILIPPINE REPUBLICAN SEALS IN THE VISAYAS ALBUM OF THE NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF THE PHILIPPINES COLLECTION
By: Diana Galang
Date Published: October 5, 2023
Probably the biggest collection of Philippine Republican seals in the Visayas outside the Philippine Revolutionary Records (PRR) of the National Library of the Philippines (NHCP) is found in an album discovered in the NHCP Special Collections. This album was entrusted by the late Emelita V. Almosara, former NHCP Deputy Executive Director, to the NHCP Serafin D. Quiason Resource Center before she became the Executive Director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in 2012. it contains no information about its provenance, thus, the NHCP aptly named by it the Philippine Republican Seals in the Visayas Album.
The seals in the album are consistent with the nomenclature of the First Philippine Republic which was founded on 23 January 1899 in Barasoain, then a separate town from Malolos, Bulacan. They also bear the iconic anthropomorphic eight-ray Philippine Revolution sun introduced during Emilio Aguinaldo’s incumbency as the president of the Philippines as early as 1897, rising behind mountains with three five-pointed stars around. The said album itself consists mostly of Republican seals of various towns in the Visayas, including federal offices adhering to the name and authority of the First Philippine Republic. It has a total of 126 seals including municipal and Visayan Federal Republic seals. There are also two sheets with ecclesiastical seals from the Spanish period. The album has Republican forms such as a community certificate.
The seals were cutouts from what seemed to be confiscated documents from the headquarters of the Republican Forces in various localities in the Visayas. These may have been collected as souvenirs by an American soldier or officer assigned to the region. The NHCP enjoins everyone to study the material. Please check the material via National Memory Project.
