Day of Valor

Araw ng Kagitingan, translated as Day of Valor, is observed on April 9, the anniversary of the 1942 surrender of Bataan during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. After months of resistance by Filipino and American forces, tens of thousands of prisoners were forced towards camps in what became known as the Bataan Death March. Many died from violence, illness, hunger and exhaustion; Filipino civilians also endured occupation, displacement and reprisals across the archipelago.

The commemoration developed after the war and is now a regular holiday under the Philippine calendar. National ceremonies often focus on Mount Samat’s Dambana ng Kagitingan in Bataan and honour veterans, prisoners of war, guerrillas and civilians without presenting wartime experience as a single uniform story. The date is solemn rather than triumphal, linking military courage with remembrance of suffering and the responsibilities of later generations.

Day of Valor appears in the Philippine calendar with a specific legal classification that should not be blurred into the generic word “holiday.” A regular national holiday on April 9 commemorating courage and sacrifice during the Second World War. Proclamation No. 1006 and any later date-specific proclamation control the 2026 status; DOLE guidance then explains covered private-sector pay, including the regular-holiday rules and the different “no work, no pay” baseline for special non-working days unless a more favourable policy or agreement applies. Government, essential and continuous services use their own authorised staffing arrangements.