Caviteños try to break flag twirling record

BACOOR, Cavite – In a call for national awareness and renewed appreciation of the significance of the Philippine flag as a symbol of nationhood, Caviteños attempted yesterday a Guinness feat for the longest flag twirling.

Belgium holds the Guinness record for the longest flag twirling staged by 630 people on Aug. 26 last year.

To highlight this year’s National Flag Day, Alda Cabrera, provincial public information officer, said more than 20,000 Caviteños joined the “Hamon ng Katapangan,” featuring the longest line of people simultaneously waving the Philippine flag.

Participants assembled along a 17-kilometer stretch of Aguinaldo Highway from SM Bacoor to SM Dasmariñas for the event, which kicked off this year’s Kalayaan Festival.

The event opened with a program at SM Bacoor participated in by provincial officials and executives of Cavite’s three cities and 20 towns.

The simultaneous waving of the flag started at 4 p.m. with Gov. Ayong Maliksi and local officials on board the Kalayaan Festival bus cheering the participants, among them government employees, students, and members of non-government groups. A fireworks display at SM Dasmariñas capped the event.

“Actually, beating the record in the Guinness Book World of Records is just secondary. Our main objective is to show to the whole world that we are one in commemorating the Flag Day that symbolizes the heroic achievements of every Filipino,” Maliksi told The STAR.

On June 12, Independence Day, aside from the traditional flag-raising ceremony at the Aguinaldo Shrine in Kawit town in the morning, a Kalayaan Diorama will highlight the afternoon program, featuring 300 artists in costumes circa 1898 and transforming the Aguinaldo Shrine into a “portal of the past.”