Government services for the Philippines were suddenly cancelled Friday by a decree of Ferdinand Marcos signed late on Thursday. It was sudden, sending parents scrambling for babysitters. Children in schools across the Philippines were quickly sent home on Thursday and told not to return to their school grounds until Monday. Classes, children’s activities, meetings, exam re-writes, everything was suddenly cancelled.
“Bedlam prevails across the Philippines as government services suddenly close down and phones go unanswered as nobody knows what to do,” explains Manila nurse, Karinna Angeles. “It’s like Marcos suddenly stuck a knitting needle in the eye of the People Power Revolution,” she added. “Saturday is supposed to be the holiday.”
1986 Philippines rally against the Marcos Dictatorship in which protesters hold up images of Escalante Massacre victims. Photo Credit: Malacañang Palace Presidential Museum and Library.
A delicate balancing act of shattered lives interrupted again?
“Mass murders, COVID-19, public humiliation of mask-refusers and the murder of lockdown-breakers, plus tens of thousands of grieving family members over the government’s killing sprees and recently the handing over of the Philippines to America so they can fight a war with China from here. One more screw-up has left people totally thunderstruck. Excuse me but I need to find a babysitter for my kindergarten child because I must work today, or patients will suffer,” said the angry Ms. Angeles who suddenly had to ring off.
Saturday, the 25th of February, remains a special non-working holiday, the People Power Revolution Anniversary which purportedly celebrates the time that the current President’s namesake was ousted from his brutal dictatorship by a peaceful ‘people’s revolution.’
“The People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution or the February Revolution, was a series of popular demonstrations in the Philippines, mostly in Metro Manila, from February 22 to 25, 1986. There was a sustained campaign of civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud.” Citing Wikipedia
The son of Philippines’ brutal dictator Ferdinand Marcos just sent the Pacific island archipelago into an unrecoverable flat spin with a proclamation sending the children home and closing government services that was signed by noon on Thursday, February 23.
“A new Marcos is president: the son, namesake, and splitting image of the late dictator. Marcos Jr. nicknamed “Bongbong,” wants his father’s sordid history forgotten. Since Marcos Jr., his siblings, and their mother returned to the Philippines after Marcos Sr. died of natural causes in 1989, they’ve made inroads in local and eventually national politics, culminating in Marcos Jr.’s election as president last June. Along the way, they’ve steadily refused to apologize for the sins of their family’s past and been accused by historians of denialism and revisionism when discussing the atrocities of Marcos Sr.’s regime.
“We have got to move on,” Marcos Jr. posted on Facebook in 2012 on the 40th anniversary of his father’s declaration of martial law,” Writes
Chad Dr Guzman in Manila for Time Magazine.
Text:
MALACANAN PALACE, MANILA
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES
PROCLAMATION NO. 167
DECLARING FRIDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2023, AS A SPECIAL (NON-WORKING)
DAY THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY
WHEREAS, Proclamation No. 42 dated 22 August 2022 as amended by
Proclamation No. 90 dated 11 November 2022 declared 25 February 2023 (EDSA
People Power Revolution Anniversary), Saturday, as a special non-working day
throughout the country;
WHEREAS, to enable our countrymen to avail of the benefits of a longer
weekend pursuant to the principle of holiday economics, the celebration of EDSA
People Power Revolution Anniversary may be moved from 25 February 2023
(Saturday) to 24 February 2023 (Friday), provided that the historical significance of
EDSA People Power Revolution Anniversary is maintained,
NOW, THEREFORE, |, FERDINAND R. MARCOS, JR., President of the
Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby declare Friday, 24
February 2023, as a special (non-working) day throughout the country.
The Department of Labor and Employment is hereby directed to issue the
appropriate circular to implement this Proclamation for the private sector.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, | have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the Republic of the Philippines to be affixed.
Done in the City of Manila, this 23rd day of February, in the year of Our Lord,
Two Thousand and Twenty Three.
By the President: