What do the colours of the Philippines flag mean?

Blue: peace, truth and justice. Red: patriotism and valour. White: equality and fraternity. Gold: the sun and stars.

How do you tell the Philippines flag from the Czechia one?

Czechia has a blue triangle on white over red, with no sun or stars.

When was the Philippines flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1898, and its official ratio is 1:2.

The flag of Philippines

A blue band over a red band, with a white equilateral triangle at the hoist bearing a golden sun with eight rays and three gold five-pointed stars, one at each corner.

Ratio 1:2 · current design adopted 1898

Philippines

The Philippines is the only country that deliberately flies its flag upside down: in wartime the red band goes on top, and the constitution says so explicitly. This has happened in practice — the flag was displayed inverted at a 2010 ASEAN meeting in New York, causing a diplomatic incident that the Philippine government treated as an error rather than a declaration. The design was sewn in Hong Kong in 1898 by Marcela Agoncillo and first raised at Kawit in June that year. The blue shade has been changed by law five times, most recently in 1998 to a royal blue.

Flags it gets confused with

Philippines

Czechia

Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.

Flag	How to tell them apart
Czechia	Czechia has a blue triangle on white over red, with no sun or stars.

What the colours mean

Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.

The symbols on it

What	What it stands for
Eight-rayed sun	The first eight provinces to revolt against Spain in 1896
Three stars	Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao

Ratio: 1:2
Current design adopted: 1898
Colours: blue, red, white, gold

Common questions

What does the flag of Philippines look like?: A blue band over a red band, with a white equilateral triangle at the hoist bearing a golden sun with eight rays and three gold five-pointed stars, one at each corner.
What do the colours of the Philippines flag mean?: Blue: peace, truth and justice. Red: patriotism and valour. White: equality and fraternity. Gold: the sun and stars.
How do you tell the Philippines flag from the Czechia one?: Czechia has a blue triangle on white over red, with no sun or stars.
When was the Philippines flag adopted?: The current design dates from 1898, and its official ratio is 1:2.

Philippines Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Czechia Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with blue in it
The flag of United States Ratio 10:19
The flag of India Ratio 2:3
The flag of United Kingdom Ratio 1:2
The flag of France Ratio 2:3
The flag of Russia Ratio 2:3
The flag of Brazil Ratio 7:10
The flag of Australia Ratio 1:2
The flag of South Korea Ratio 2:3

Sources

The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (Public domain (US Government))

How these figures are compiled and checked