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Flags of the Philippines

From scattered pre-colonial polities, through three and a third centuries as a Spanish colony administered from Mexico City and then Madrid, a brief revolutionary republic crushed by a new colonial power, nearly four decades of American rule, brutal Japanese wartime occupation, and finally full sovereignty in 1946 — eight flags tracing one of the longest colonial histories in Southeast Asia.

The Philippine flag itself is unusual in the region: the same sun-and-stars design, first raised in 1898, has survived every regime change since — including a US colonial administration that permitted it only from 1919 onward, and a wartime Japanese-sponsored republic that flew it too.

Scope of this page: the lands of present-day Philippines, pre-1565–present, eight political entities. No single flag unified the pre-colonial archipelago's many competing polities, so that era is shown honestly blank rather than with an invented banner. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.

One archipelago, eight flags over it

The Philippines' own real coastline, traced whole — every major island from Luzon to Mindanao answered to the same government in every era below, so there's no genuinely separate internal region to carve out honestly. Press play, or drag the slider, to watch who held it all at once.

This is a single-region page. The pre-1565 era was fragmented among many competing polities, but none of them controlled a distinct, stable piece of today's national territory long enough to trace as its own honest border — and every government since 1565, Spanish, American, Japanese, or Filipino, ruled the archipelago as one administrative unit. What changes here is only who held it all.

pre-1565

Pre-colonial polities

Real traced coastline (Luzon, the Visayas, Mindanao, and the archipelago's major islands), no internal partition — see the rule box above for why.

the sun-and-three-stars flag, unchanged in design since 1898

1946 – present

Republic of the Philippines

Republic, independentManuel RoxasNo official state religion (Catholic majority)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: to the United States (surging after 1965)Emigration: overseas Filipino workers (1970s–)

Who & why: the United States grants full independence on 4 July 1946, honoring a commitment made in the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act, delayed by the war. The republic goes on to endure Ferdinand Marcos's martial-law dictatorship (1972–1981, with Marcos remaining in power until the 1986 "People Power" revolution) before returning to democratic rule.

What it represents: the same 1898 design — a white triangle for liberty, equality, and fraternity; a golden sun with eight rays for the first provinces to revolt; three stars for Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao — now finally the flag of a fully sovereign state, blue stripe uppermost in peacetime.

Paint guide

Proportions1:2, white triangle at hoist, blue over red field (reversed to red-over-blue in wartime).

LayoutGold sun (8 rays) centered in the triangle, one small gold star at each triangle corner.

Blue#0038A8

Red#CE1126

Gold#FCD116

flown again once the Commonwealth government returns

1945 – 1946

Commonwealth of the Philippines (restored)

Colonial (US), autonomousSergio OsmeñaNo official state religion

Who & why: US and Filipino forces liberate the islands from Japanese occupation through 1944–45; the exiled Commonwealth government, which had continued operating from Washington throughout the war, returns to Manila under President Sergio Osmeña and then Manuel Roxas to prepare the transition to full independence already promised for 1946.

What it represents: the same national flag, now flown legally again after Japan's occupation-era restrictions, in its peacetime blue-over-red orientation.

Paint guide

Proportions1:2, as above.

Blue#0038A8

Red#CE1126

the same flag, permitted by Japan under a puppet republic

1942 – 1945

Japanese occupation (Second Republic)

Occupation (Japan)José P. LaurelNo official state religion

Migration & conquest:Occupied by: Japan (1942–45)

Who & why: Japanese forces invade in December 1941 and complete their conquest by mid-1942, despite fierce Filipino-American resistance at Bataan and Corregidor. Japan installs a nominally independent puppet republic under President José P. Laurel in October 1943, while the exiled Commonwealth government continues abroad and Filipino guerrillas wage sustained resistance throughout the occupation.

What it represents: the puppet republic is permitted to fly the existing Philippine flag, though the historical wartime convention shown here places red uppermost, a variant associated with a state of war.

Paint guide

Proportions1:2, red field uppermost (wartime convention).

Red#CE1126

Gold#FCD116

legally flown for the first time under US rule from 1919

1935 – 1942

Commonwealth of the Philippines

Colonial (US), autonomousManuel L. QuezonNo official state religion

Migration & conquest:Emigration: US quota cuts Filipino immigration to 50/yr (1934)

Who & why: the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act creates a self-governing Commonwealth under Manuel Quezon as an intermediate step toward the full independence promised within ten years, with the United States retaining control of defense and foreign affairs throughout.

What it represents: the same 1898 design, formally adopted as the Commonwealth's official flag — the US had permitted it to fly, initially restricted, since a 1919 legislative act, decades before independence itself.

Paint guide

Proportions1:2, as above.

Blue#0038A8

Red#CE1126

US insular ensign, red-white-blue stripes without a canton

1898 – 1935

United States colonial administration

Colonial (US)William Howard TaftNo official state religion

Migration & conquest:Emigration: sakada laborers to Hawaii/US (1906–)

Who & why: Spain cedes the Philippines to the United States in the December 1898 Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War; Filipino revolutionaries, who had already declared independence, refuse to accept the new colonial power, and the brutal Philippine-American War (1899–1902) kills hundreds of thousands before US civil administration consolidates control. The Philippine flag itself is banned as seditious until an 1919 act permits it.

What it represents: the US Insular Government's own administrative ensign, distinct from the Stars and Stripes, used across US-administered territories of this era.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, five horizontal stripes.

Red#CE1126

Blue#0038A8

first raised 12 June 1898 — still the national flag today

1898

First Philippine Republic (Malolos)

Republic, contestedEmilio AguinaldoNo official state religion (separation established)

Who & why: revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo proclaims independence from Spain on 12 June 1898 at Kawit, and a congress at Malolos ratifies Asia's first democratic constitution in January 1899. The nascent republic's sovereignty is recognized by neither Spain, which cedes the islands to the US instead, nor the incoming Americans, whose war against it snuffs it out within a few years.

What it represents: the flag sewn in exile and raised at the proclamation — white triangle, gold sun, three stars — the same core design that outlives every regime that follows it.

Paint guide

Proportions1:2, as above.

Blue#0038A8

Red#CE1126

Gold#FCD116

Cross of Burgundy ensign, flown over the Spanish colonial administration

1565 – 1898

Captaincy General of the Philippines (Spain)

Colonial (Spain)Miguel López de LegazpiRoman Catholic (established)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Chinese merchants to Manila (from 1580s)Emigration: Chinese massacres & expulsions (1603, 1639, 1662, 1686)

Ruling house:House of HabsburgHouse of Bourbon

Who & why: Miguel López de Legazpi establishes the first permanent Spanish settlement at Cebu in 1565, and Manila becomes the colonial capital from 1571, governed for over two centuries as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain via the Manila galleon trade before passing to direct Madrid control after Mexican independence in 1821. Spanish rule Christianizes most of the archipelago and lasts 333 years, ending only when the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish-American War combine to end it in 1898.

What it represents: the red saltire Cross of Burgundy on white, the Spanish empire's own military and naval ensign flown across its colonial possessions, shown here on a red field as commonly used in the Philippines.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed civil ratio recorded; shown at 3:2.

Red#CE1126

White#F4EFE1

placeholder — many independent polities, no shared banner

pre-1565

Pre-colonial polities

Fragmented politiesNo single ruler documentedAnimism / Islam (no unified religion)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Chinese traders at coastal ports (pre-Hispanic)

Who & why: before Spanish arrival, the archipelago holds a patchwork of independent polities — the Hindu-Buddhist-influenced Rajahnate of Tondo near Manila Bay, Islamic sultanates such as Sulu and Maguindanao in the south, and numerous smaller barangay chiefdoms — connected by trade with China, other Southeast Asian kingdoms, and later Islamic traders, but never politically unified.

What it represents: no single flag can honestly represent this genuinely fragmented era; individual polities kept their own banners and none held archipelago-wide authority, so this entry is shown deliberately blank rather than inventing a false unifying symbol.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no single attested flag for this fragmented era.

Reading the tags

Fragmented polities — no single ruling power

Colonial (Spain) — direct Spanish rule

Republic, contested — sovereignty declared but not recognized

Colonial (US) — direct or autonomous US rule

Occupation (Japan) — wartime military rule

Republic, independent — sovereign and recognized

Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start

State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's

Find the records

Family history research for Philippines lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.

Search Record Atlas for Philippines →

More of the atlas

This page is one lineage in a larger set. See the region-wide hub and the other countries here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub Southeast Asia hubEleven countries, thirteen centuries