Philippine Red Cross

Apolinario Mabini encouraged the Malolos Republic to form a national Red Cross organization. On February 17, 1899, the Malolos Republic approved the Constitution of the National Association of the Red Cross.[2] The government appointed Hilaria del Rosario de Aguinaldo – the consort of President Emilio Aguinaldo – as the first head of the association.[3]

Filipino diplomat Felipe Agoncillo, met with Gustave Moynier, an original member of the Committee of Five and International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC) president on August 29, 1900. He sought recognition of the Filipino Red Cross Society as well as the application of the First Geneva Convention during the Philippine–American War.

On August 30, 1905, the American Red Cross (ARC) formed a Philippine Branch with Filipino and American leaders at the Ayuntamiento. After several years of continuous effort, the ANRC officially recognized it as a chapter on December 4, 1917.

In 1934, President Manuel L. Quezon established an independent Philippine Red Cross (PRC). However, because the Philippines was a territory and later a Commonwealth under United States sovereignty, it could not sign the Geneva Conventions and therefore it could not be recognized by the ICRC. In 1942, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the Japanese created a Philippine Red Cross that they controlled to care for internees. Once Manila was liberated by combined American and Filipino forces in 1945, local Red Cross officials and the ANRC re-established an independent Red Cross.

The Philippines gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946. Dr. J. Horacio Yanzon was appointed the first Filipino Red Cross manager in December 1946, with thirty-six Red Cross chapters initially set up in the country. On February 14, 1947, President Manuel A. Roxas signed the Treaty of Geneva and the Prisoners of War Convention. On March 22 1947, President Roxas signed Republic Act 95, the PRC charter.

The ICRC approved the recognition of the PRC, and telegraphed First Lady Aurora Aragon Quezon, the first PRC chairman, on March 29, 1947. The PRC had an inaugural ceremony on April 15, 1947.

The PRC was admitted as a bona fide member of the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on September 17, 1947.

Since 2004, the chairman of the PRC Board of Governors is Senator Richard J. Gordon. Since 1965, actress Rosa Rosal has sat on the Board of Governors. Rosal was awarded in 1999 the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service for her activities with the PRC.

• Philippine Red Cross