PENDING: No holiday proclamation yet from Malacañang for August 12

The Office of the Executive Secretary will be the one to release the proclamation on declaring August 12 a holiday. This is in relation to the celebration of Eid’l Adha or Feast of Sacrifice of the Muslim festivities this coming Monday.

PENDING: No holiday proclamation yet from Malacañang for August 12

The Malacañang Palace will announce very soon a proclamation declaring a regular holiday throughout the country for Eid’l Adha or “Feast of Sacrifice,” which likely to fall on August 11 (Sunday) or August 12 (Monday).

Eid’l Adha is one of the largest religious festivals for Muslims worldwide. In the Philippines, Republic Act (RA) 9849 signed in 2009 says the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah or the twelfth month of the Islamic Calendar, is hereby declared as a national holiday for the observance of Eid’l Adha.

According to Proclamation No. 555 for the nationwide holidays for the year 2019, the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) shall inform the Office of the President of the actual date of Eid’l Adha on which this holiday shall fall.

An excerpt from the Proclamation No. 555 states that:

“SECTION 2. The proclamations declaring national holidays for the observance of Eidul Fitr and Eidul Adha shall hereafter be issued after the approximate dates of the Islamic holidays have been determined in accordance with the Islamic calendar (Hijra) or the lunar calendar, or upon Islamic astronomical calculations, whichever is possible or convenient. To this end, the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) shall inform the Office of the President on the actual dates on which these holidays shall respectively fall.”

The Department of Education (DepEd), however, already included in its Order No. 007, series of 2019 calendar for the school year 2019-2020, making August 12 as a regular holiday for Eid’l Adha.

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If Eid’l Adha falls on August 12, Filipinos will have two long weekends this month of August: August 10-12 and August 24-26 for National Heroes’ Day weekend. August 21 (Wednesday) was also declared special (non-working) holiday for Ninoy Aquino Day.

About Eid’l Adha

Eid al-Adha marks the willingness of Ibrahim (also known as Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Ismail or Ismael) as an act of obedience to God, before God then intervened, to provide him with a sheep to sacrifice instead.