Philippine Independence Day holiday – June 12 2014
Filipinos all over the world will be celebrating the Philippines’ 116th Independence Day on June 12, Thursday.
As mandated in President Benigno Aquino III’s Proclamation 655, June 12 is one of the country’s 10 national holidays for 2014. And given the date’s historical significance, it is almost impossible for Malacanang to move the holiday to June 13 to create a three-day weekend.
Since June 12 is a national holiday, employees who will not report for this day should still get their day’s salary in full.
Meanwhile, those who will be working on that day, perhaps because the companies they are working for are following the holidays in countries where they are based, should get 200% of their regular hourly rate depending on the number of hours of service rendered. This is according to the rules set by the Department of Labor and Employment.
From 1946 to 1964, July 4 was the date designated as the country’s Independence Day. It was in July 4, 1946 when the Americans formally ceded the Philippines as a colony, effectively ending the Commonwealth Government in the process.
This changed in 1964 when then-President Diosdado Macapagal signed Republic Act 4166 which moved the date from July 4 to June 12. Macapagal said this is necessary to make Filipinos “recall the heroes of the revolution against Spain and their acts of sublime heroism and martyrdom.”
July 4 in turn was designated as the Philippine Republic Day, still a national holiday. Twenty years later, then-President Ferdinand Marcos declared July 4 as Filipino-American Friendship Day, a working holiday. The practice has since been discontinued with the framing of the 1987 Constitution.