The high-handed politics of holidays

In the newly-released list of official holidays, the government has deleted the celebration of February 25 as the EDSA Memorial Day.

This was immediately criticized by Liberal Party President Edcel Lagman, the congressman representing the 1st District of Albay. To our mind too, such a cavalier treatment of historical facts is a palpable sign of this administration's overt acts of distorting Philippine history.

Congressman Lagman said and we agree that: "The inordinate arrogance of the second Marcos administration in failing to celebrate February 25 as a regular public holiday is a continuing distortion of the verities about the evils and repression of the Marcos martial era.”

Congressman Lagman added: “Ever since the Philippines has marked February 25 as a day of national celebration, irrespective of whether or not it falls on a Sunday. The more Marcos Jr. would sweep under the rug of historical perfidy the profligacy and oppression of his father’s dictatorship, the more unreachable reconciliation and justice will be."

Presidential Proclamation 368 was released by Malacañang on Friday the thirteenth, October 13, 2023, which listed the non-working days and list of official holidays in 2024. The list clearly excluded February 25 among the list of special non-working days. The rationale expressed by the Palace was that "there would be minimal socio-economic impact in declaring this holiday as a special non-working holiday since it coincides with the rest days for most workers and laborers." That kind of convoluted reasoning is what lawyers call "negative pregnant" argument. That same absence of impact can be used to argue why it should have been declared.

According to the Cornell University Law Journal, a negative pregnant is the denial of some part of an allegation such that the denial is “pregnant” with the possibility that the allegation as a whole may still be true, except for that detail. In other words, an individual’s refusal to categorically deny the entirety of an allegation gives that individual’s denial an implied meaning that is closer to an admission that the allegation is mostly true. The Palace's attempt at reasoning to lend a semblance of rectitude to such a blatant distortion of history can be used against the author of such a decision precisely to demolish its rationale.

It is also reported that this group calling itself "Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law”, led by martial law survivor Judy Taguiwalo, condemned the Palace’s move, calling it an attempt to push into oblivion all the atrocities under the president’s father. It was further noted that, aside from the Malacañang announcement, Taguiwalo also denounced the other alleged efforts of the Marcos administration to revise history. This includes the changing of “Diktadurang Marcos” to “Diktadura” in the Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan curriculum of the new school curriculum euphemistically called Matatag Curriculum.

Perhaps, it is not farfetched to expect that the next target of this reprehensible distortion of history would be to eliminate August 21 as a special day in commemoration of the assassination of senator Ninoy Aquino. They even want to change the name of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. If that happens, then that would be another day of infamy. And the sovereign Filipino people may no longer tolerate such a travesty.