by Jazie Rangga || Illustration by Kyle Nase

Here’s a question for President Marcos: Why does one “move” a historical event that has sparked one of the greatest revolutions of world history? 

On August 21, 1983, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., one of the most vocal critics of the Marcos dictatorship, was assassinated right after he emerged from his plane following a flight back to the Philippines. Aquino had just spent three years in the United States to get medically treated for his heart attack, only to have fallen on the same fate he was escaping from. 

His death was the final straw, the turning point that drove Filipinos from different walks of life to unite for one cause: flood the streets of EDSA and reclaim their country from Martial Law and authoritarian rule.

41 years later, in 2024, the holiday that marked the commemoration of this event was pushed back to August 23, a Friday, to make it a continuous four-day non-working holiday, with Monday being National Heroes’ Day, a decision in line with the Marcos administration’s “Holiday Economics” policy.

This is not to say that this four-day break is completely ruinous. In a country where, according to Microsoft Philippines, 63% of Filipinos feel overworked while another 31% feel exhausted, four days of no work seems like complete bliss. This long weekend allows hard-working Filipinos to relax, unwind, and spend time with their family. 

But it still begs the question: Are four days of relaxation worth it when done at the expense of trivializing one of the most significant events of our country’s history?

To move around the date of a holiday that has, for years, been commemorated by the people, all in the name of convenience, is as tone-deaf as it is entirely straightforward. For the non-disruptor Marcos, moving this holiday around marks another step towards ultimately erasing the narrative that tied Aquino’s death back to the Marcos family and the legion of atrocities committed in their name. Through publicly changing its date as if it were everyday scheduling, it is as if Marcos is reducing the significance of the late senator’s death to a mere speck, all while hiding this agenda under the sly guise of needed rest and pragmatic economics.

This is not even the first time that President Marcos switched up a holiday that coincidentally commemorates the events which led to his family’s ousting. Last October 11, he signed Proclamation No. 368, which made the anniversary which celebrated the EDSA Revolution no longer a special non-working holiday; it was simply another regular working holiday. 

However, legally, an administration cannot suddenly declare a non-working holiday as a working one, unless it falls on days like Sunday and Wednesday; and only then can it be moved to the next week’s Monday to avoid an inconvenient ‘sandwich day’. If so, it has to be announced 6 months in advance, which was not abided by when Ninoy Aquino Day was moved. 

So not only was it highly disrespectful to the memory of Aquino’s martyrdom, it was also a blatant violation of the law, another lousy attempt at slowly extinguishing the flame his sacrifice lit in the hearts of the masses.

Although the reason Marcos moves these holidays can be simply attributed to the implementation of “Holiday Economics,” one can argue that it is also an underhanded attempt at revising history to feed a narrative that slowly forgets the horror of the Marcos regime and its ruthless past with the Aquinos and Filipinos.

Through these seemingly innocuous yet highly numerous plays, Marcos wielded a weapon greater than blame or power—he expertly employed the use of indifference to the cause, and nothing erases history faster than blatant callousness towards the past. 

If Marcos cannot bring himself to respect our fallen brethren in our nation’s never-ending fight for democracy, it is then up to us to uphold the honor and memory of these pivotal events and the heroes behind them to uphold the freedoms which they had died for and which we must live by. 

Just as Ninoy Aquino himself said, “We must not only preserve yesterday’s heritage, fight for today’s ephemeral interests, but die if need be, for tomorrow’s hopes.” 

May his words remind us to continue the good fight for the liberties and new way-of-life breathed not only into our people, but into the nation as a whole, through his death, lest the next generation suffer a similar fate to that of our forefathers.