Philippine Independence Medal
The Philippine Independence Medal was created by order of the Commonwealth of the Philippine Army in July of 1946 as an award of the Republic of the Philippines. Philippine Defense Medals are not US military medals, but foreign awards, and unlike the medals of America, they are presented by the Republic of the Philippines rather than any American agency. For this reason, they are worn below almost all the military awards given by the United States to its soldiers. These military awards were first created and presented only as military ribbons. In 1968 president Marcos authorized the addition of corresponding military medals. The Philippine Independence Medal was created to recognize Philippine and allied military members who participated in multiple Philippine liberation operations during World War II. The PIM was authorized for award to service persons of foreign military forces and a large number of retroactive awards were made right after the cessation of World War II hostilities.
To be awarded the Philippine Independence Medal, a service member must have previously received both the Philippine Defense Medal and the Philippine Liberation Medal, and have served on active military duty in the Philippines after July 4, 1946. The award criteria effectively awarded the medal to anyone who had participated in both the initial resistance against invasion by the Japanese and also in the later campaigns to liberate the Philippines from Japanese occupation in 1945.
The Philippine Independence Medal may be worn below the Philippine Liberation Medal and above the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation in the general order of precedence that has been established for the proper display of all military medals and ribbons. These awards can be worn as traditional full size military medals and mini medals, military ribbons and lapel pins. They are available as traditional slide-on, full size military medals or mini-medals and slide-on military ribbons. In these more competitive days, however, more and more military service personnel are realizing the value to their career goals of always having their uniform decorations looking their best, and have turned to the slimmer and trimmer thin military medals and mini medals and the ultra thin military ribbons to provide them with the smartest looking military award displays possible.
