“We are a troubled people,” Roxas admitted in his speech on July 4, 1946. With the cities in ruins and violence brewing in the countryside, that was impossible to deny. But there was joy, too. A specially sewn U.S. flag, with one star stitched in each of the Philippines’ forty-eight provinces, was ceremoniously lowered. Up the same cord rose the Philippine flag, to deafening applause. MacArthur turned to Carlos Romulo. “Carlos,” he said, “America has buried imperialism here today.”
