Lawmakers from the Magdalo party list are proposing that the “Araw ng Kagitingan” (Day of Valor) celebration be moved from April 9 to Sept. 3 in order to memorialize the country’s victories rather than its defeats.
Representatives Gary C. Alejano and Francisco Ashley L. Acedillo have filed House Bill No. 6242 designating Sept. 3 as the new Day of Valor to commemorate the country’s victories against the Spanish colonizers and Japanese invaders.
They said that Filipino and American troops raised the white flag on April 9, 1942, commemorated as the Fall of Bataan and Corregidor. (Following the surrender, Filipino and American troops were forced by the Japanese to walk from Mariveles, Bataan, to Capas, Tarlac, in the infamous Bataan Death March.) It was renamed the Day of Valor in 1987.
Alejano and Acedillo said that Sept. 3 was a more appropriate date because it was on this day that Filipino forces won the Battle of Imus (Cavite) against the Spanish colonizers in 1896 and the Japanese general Gen. Tomuyuki Yamashita surrendered at Camp John Hay in 1945.
“The Battle of Imus is recognized as the first big battle of the Philippine Revolution which the Filipinos won. It boosted the morale of the revolutionaries who were defeated in San Juan del Monte. It also sparked many more citizens to join the fight for independence as revolutionaries,” said the two ex-soldiers and ex-putschists who now sit in the reserved seats for so-called “marginalized” sectors in the House of Representatives.
“Yamashita’s surrender, which took place in Kiangan, Ifugao, marked the beginning of the liberation of the Philippines after five years of Japanese rule,” they said.
Alejano and Acedillo said it was about time the country changed its tradition of remembering its darkest hours rather than its brightest days as seen in the annual commemoration of the surrender of Filipino soldiers to the Japanese forces every April 6, national hero Jose Rizal’s death anniversary on Dec. 30 and the assassination of martyred opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. every Aug. 21.
“The country’s military victories, carved by blood on the pages of history, should be given due respect and recognition. Sept. 3 would be an appropriate opportunity for the Filipino people to celebrate our country’s military milestones of sacrifices, as well as reflect on the duties called upon them as citizens of the Philippines,” they said.