The Philippine Centennial had to be very carefully crafted to suit the political, social, and cultural requirements of the nation in the late 20th century. This essay explores how the administration of President Fidel Ramos tried to conceptualize these celebrations in such a manner that they were inclusive of the entire population. To achieve these ends, however, the representation of history had to be modified to conform to the demands of a renascent but newly promoted state ideology, Filipinism, that seeks to unite the people through reference to a shared, but not necessarily authenticated, past. By commemorating the Centennial as the 'birth of the nation', the 1898 Revolution has been transformed into a nationalist origin myth whereby accuracy is less important than the construction of an appropriate historical identity for the present.