MANILA — The Senate approved on third and final reading a bill that would declare Sept. 2 as a special non-working holiday in the province of Ifugao in commemoration of the surrender of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita in the province at the end of World War II.
House Bill No. 5553 was sponsored by Senator Sonny Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, and was approved with 19 affirmative votes, zero negative vote, and no abstention.
Angara said the special non-working holiday in Ifugao aims to mark the surrender of Yamashita, then commander of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, on Sept. 2, 1945 at Kiangan, Ifugao.
Angara noted that after Yamashita’s surrender in Ifugao, the general turned over Camp John Hay in Baguio City to the combined forces of Filipinos and Americans liberating the country.
“For communities to progress, we must also consider honoring and learning from our history and the people who were part of it,” Angara said.
Under the bill, the provincial government of Ifugao, the municipal government of Kiangan, along with the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO), and the Military Shrines Service (MSS) are tasked to “lead appropriate and meaningful commemorative programs and activities” in relation to the event.
Such activities, according to the bill, will “give significance and honor to the heroes and heroines, who contributed to the Philippines’ liberation from the Japanese forces.”
Yamashita, who surrendered his forces several weeks after the announcement of Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, was later found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death in 1946. (PR/PNA)
