The following day, on the steps of the State Capitol in Tacloban, MacArthur would preside over a more formal ceremony with President Osmeña—a symbolic transfer of sovereignty back to the Philippines. He had not cleared this declaration with the U.S. State Department or the Department of the Interior, which held commonwealth authority over the Philippines. MacArthur was making his own U.S. foreign policy in Asia—not for the first time, and certainly not for the last.
