It was decreed in the Proclamation No. 368 signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., that the EDSA People Power Anniversary be excluded from the list of official holidays for 2024, which appeared to be more than just an administrative adjustment to Filipinos– more so a symbolic omission that risks erasing a chapter of the nation’s history.
Many Filipinos regard February 25 as a significant day. It's a day when the people, united in spirit and resolve, reclaimed their democracy from the clutches of dictatorship. The images of that historic day, where throngs of ordinary citizens converged along EDSA, armed not with weapons but with courage and conviction, are indelibly imprinted in our national consciousness. Excluding the EDSA Revolution as an official holiday does not diminish the importance of it in shaping our nation’s identity. However, it does reflect a lack of appreciation for the values it represents: democracy, freedom, and the power of collective action.
On the other hand, the Office of the President says that they still hold respect for the commemoration of the event in 1986. However, they say that it isn’t listed as a “special non-working day for the year 2024, as February 25 falls on a Sunday.” True to this, previous years had still listed the EDSA Revolution as a special non-working holiday, but not when it had been on a Sunday; important dates that had fallen on Sunday had only been declared as special holidays mostly when it’s either in religious context, or on New Years.
They added that doing so would give “minimal socio-economic impact in declaring such a day as a special non-working holiday since it coincides with the rest day for most workers/laborers”
Nonetheless, Filipinos still chose to not forget the holiday, remembering the courage and sacrifice of those who stood up for the country to defend democracy and human rights.
While it hadn’t been a special holiday this year as a symbolic gesture to respect the past, the unity behind the EDSA Revolution still holds true in the nation.
