Palace: Gov't work, public school classes suspended on Sept. 21

MANILA, Philippines — Only classes in public schools and work in government offices will be suspended on September 21, Malacañang said Tuesday.

 

Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella said it will be up to private schools and companies whether to suspend classes and work during that day.

 

The Office of the Executive Secretary will issue a memorandum circular on the class and work suspensions.

 

Abella clarified that September 21, also the commonly acknowledged 45th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, will not be a special non-working holiday but a “day of protest.”

 

 

 

Martial law was actually announced on September 23, 1972 but Proclamation 1081 was dated September 21, the day the government started to enforce it. 

 

Confusion mounted on Monday after President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he would not declare September 21 a holiday but would suspend work and classes to allow the public to join protests.

Various groups, led by the Movement Against Tyranny, announced they would stage massive demonstrations at Quirino Grandstand on Thursday to condemn killings and abuses related to the administration’s war on drugs and alleged plans to declare martial law nationwide.

 

The Bantayog ng mga Bayani will also host "an encounter between millennials and martial law survivors" on Thursday morning.

 

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said last week that the possibility of martial law being declared nationwide is remote although Duterte has hinted that he will not hesitate to do so if communist rebels bring their armed struggle to the streets.

 

“But I don’t think the possibility that the Left will be able to conduct a massive demonstration across the country, [thereby] disrupting the civil government or the lives of the people [I don't think that will happen],” he said last Friday.