Today in Philippine History (Philatelic Edition Series 3):
October 2, 1863
Rafael Crame y Perez de Tagle (October 2, 1863 - January 1, 1927) was a constabulary officer who served as the first Filipino chief of the former Philippine Constabulary from 1917 until his death in 1927.
He was born in Malabon, Rizal on October 2, 1863 to Don Rafael Maria de Crame y Gonzalez Calderon, an artillery officer in the Spanish Army in the Philippines, while his mother was Maria Perez de Tagle. His grandfather was Joaquín Rafael de Crame, the Governor-General of the Philippines in 1835.
He studied at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and enrolled at the Spanish military academy from 1879 up to 1881.
After his cadetship, the Spanish government employed him in the Negociado de Contribucion Territorial. When the 1896 Philippine Revolution broke out, he was a government official in the Administracion de Hacienda Publica. He joined a battalion composed of volunteer forces organized by the Spanish armed forces.
Crame joined the Philippine Constabulary in 1902 and started as a young lieutenant. He figured prominently in various peace and order campaigns during the early years of the American colonial period and eventually got promoted as colonel in 1914.
In December 1917, Crame became Chief of the Constabulary with the rank of brigadier general. He was awarded the American Medal of Valor for helping end a mutiny in Manila in 1921. Crame declined the recognition and said, “I only did my duty."
On August 7, 2003, Crame’s remains were exhumed from the La Loma Cemetery in Manila and was given a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig the following day. Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police, was named after him. The Philippine Constabulary founded in 1901 was the forerunner organization of the Philippine National Police.
On March 8, 2021, the Philippine National Police unveiled a new, larger than life horse-mounted bronze monument of Brigadier General Rafael Perez de Tagle Crame in Quezon City.
(Design, concept, stamps and research: Richard Allan B. Uy)
All rights reserved
Photo credit: wikipedia.org and Philippine National Police fb page
No comments:
Post a Comment