The celebration of National Heroes Day began during the American Colonial Period. The Philippine Legislature, then dominated by Filipino leaders who represented the national aspiration for independence, first enacted the holiday into law through Act No. 3827 on October 28, 1931. The Act declared the last Sunday of August of every year an official national holiday. However, as far as research has been able to determine, November 30, while already celebrated as Bonifacio Day by virtue of Act No. 2946 s. 1921,^[1] was also held to commemorate anonymous heroes of the nation in that same year.^[2] It appears that the practice of celebrating Bonifacio Day concurrently with the commemoration of Filipino heroes on November 30 was carried on in subsequent years. For example, on November 30, 1936, President Manuel L. Quezon himself was the guest of honor at the National Heroes Day celebration held at the University of the Philippines.^[3]

While National Heroes Day and Bonifacio Day were celebrated on the same day, there were separate celebrations.^{[4] [5]} The custom then was to hold the annual formal military review of the cadets (ROTC) of the University of the Philippines, in the presence of officials from the three branches of government^[6] while another celebration was held at the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan.^[7] It was on November 30, 1941, the last National Heroes Day commemoration before the beginning of the Second World War in the Pacific, that President Manuel L. Quezon broke protocol and addressed the cadets assembled in the military review at the University of the Philippines, informing them and those present about the precarious situation of the country amidst the Japanese encroachment in neighboring countries.^[8]

During the Japanese Occupation of the country, the holiday was still celebrated on the same day. President Jose P. Laurel signed Executive Order No. 20 on March 20, 1942, which set the National Heroes Day on the thirtieth of November. The following year, in an act of silent defiance, President Laurel chose Mount Samat Cemetery in Bataan as the place of the National Heroes Day commemoration on November 30, 1943, implicitly commemorating the Filipino and American forces defeated in that very place in Bataan, and in Corregidor by the Japanese on April 3 and May 6, 1942 respectively. President Laurel’s speech was delivered by Minister of the Interior Arsenio Bonifacio, in which the president honored “them on this day which national custom has consecrated to the memory of those who knew how to sacrifice the interests of self and the rich pleasures of living for the sake of the dignity and welfare of the greatest number.”

On November 30, 1945, the year the Japanese Occupation and the Second World War in the Pacific ended, President Sergio Osmeña delivered a speech on the National Heroes Day in Capas, Tarlac. This was to commemorate the town not only as a prison camp under the Occupation, but also as “a symbol of spiritual resistance, a symbol of faith.”

In 1952, President Elpidio Quirino reverted the date of National Heroes Day back to the last Sunday of August. Through Administrative Order No. 190, s. 1952, he appointed Secretary of Education Cecilio Puton as head of a committee to take charge of the National Heroes Day celebration, which took place on August 31, 1952. He then delivered a speech on the same day at the Philippine Normal College (formerly Philippine Normal University), explaining that the “change has become necessary because of the interest from different sectors of our country to celebrate each hero’s anniversary in order to perpetuate his [Andres Bonifacio’s] name.”

President Corazon C. Aquino’s Administrative Code of 1987 adopted this in Executive Order No. 292, Book 1, Chapter 7, which provided for a list of regular holidays and nationwide special days, setting National Heroes Day as a regular holiday celebrated on the last Sunday of August. The Administrative Code provides that the list of holidays and special days may be “modified by law, order or proclamation.”

On July 24, 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act No. 9492, which amended Book 1, Chapter 7 of the Administrative Code. By virtue of R.A. 9492, the celebration of National Heroes Day thus falls on the last Monday of August. The rationale behind the move was President Arroyo’s “Holiday Economics” programme,^[9] which aimed to reduce work disruptions by moving holidays to the nearest Monday or Friday of the week, thus allowing for longer weekends and boosting domestic leisure and tourism.^[10]

Our national heroes are often portrayed as a pantheon of distinct and powerful personalities who have managed to get their names published in our history books by virtue of their words or actions. But National Heroes Day specifies no hero; the law that put into practice the celebration does not name a single one. And this lack of specifics offers an opportunity to celebrate the bravery of not one, not a few, but all Filipino heroes who have braved death or persecution for home, nation, justice, and freedom.

[READ: All the Presidential speeches delivered on National Heroes Day]

Bibliography

_____. “Anonymous heroes are remembered”. The Tribune. December 1, 1931.

_____. “Thousands pay homage to heroes,” The Tribune, December 1, 1936, p. 1.

Adolfo, Maria Cherry Lyn S., “Crafting Filipino Leisure: Tourism Programmes in the Philippines,” Domestic Tourism in Asia: Diversity and Divergence. London, UK: Earthscan, Inc., 2009.

Hurley, John F., Wartime Superior in the Philippines: 1941-1945. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005.

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “Under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the celebration of many national holidays was moved to the nearest Monday or Friday to allow for extended or long weekends,” MoneyPolitics: A Citizen’s guide to Elections, Public Funds, and Governance in the Philippines, accessed on August 24, 2015, link.

Quezon Family Collection. Philippine Press Clippings Volume VII 1940-1945, accessed on August 28, 2015, link.

Quizon, Mona Lisa. “Why celebrate Bonifacio Day?”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, accessed on August 28, 2015, link.

Endnotes

^[1] Mona Lisa Quizon, “Why celebrate Bonifacio Day?”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, accessed on August 28, 2015, link.

^[2] ___, “Anonymous heroes are remembered,” The Tribune, December 1, 1931, p. 1.

^[3] ___, “Thousand pay homage to heroes,” The Tribune, December 1, 1936, p. 1.

^[4] Quezon Family Collection, Philippine Press Clippings Volume VII 1940-1945, accessed on August 28, 2015, link.

^[5] ____, “Thousands pay homage to heroes,” The Tribune, December 1, 1936, p. 1.

^[6] John F. Hurley, Wartime Superior in the Philippines: 1941-1945, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005), 6-7.

^[7] ____, “Thousands pay homage to heroes,” The Tribune, December 1, 1936, p. 1.

^[8] John F. Hurley, Wartime Superior in the Philippines: 1941-1945, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005), 6-7.

^[9] Maria Cherry Lyn S. Adolfo, “Crafting Filipino Leisure: Tourism Programmes in the Philippines,” Domestic Tourism in Asia: Diversity and Divergence, (London, UK: Earthscan, Inc., 2009), p. 249.

^[10] Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “Under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the celebration of many national holidays was moved to the nearest Monday or Friday to allow for extended or long weekends,” MoneyPolitics: A Citizen’s guide to Elections, Public Funds, and Governance in the Philippines, accessed on August 24, 2015, link.