He retired as executive news editor in 2003. He also served as executive editor of the Malacanang-based Presidential News Desk from 1993 to 1996 and from 2005 to 2008.
Did you know that slightly more than half a century ago, the Filipino people celebrated National Thanksgiving Day every September instead of November?
The dictionary defines Thanksgiving Day as “a day appointed for giving thanks to God for blessings granted to the nation.”
Some countries celebrate it on different dates. In the United States, for instance, the celebration is on the fourth Thursday of November, and in Canada, on the second Monday of October.
In the Philippines, which had been a US colony from 1901 to 1935, it used to be observed as a special public holiday on the same day as the Americans.
According to the Presidential Museum and Library in Malacañang, when the Philippine Commonwealth Government was established on Nov. 15, 1935, President Manuel L. Quezon continued to decree the tradition of American Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday in the Philippines.
During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines from 1941 to 1945, both the Americans in the country and Filipinos celebrated Thanksgiving Day secretly.
After the Japanese withdrawal from the country, the tradition continued until the early years of the 1965-1986 administration of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., more popularly known by his initials “FM.”
However, upon the declaration of martial law in the Philippines through Proclamation No. 1081 on Sept. 21, 1972, President FM issued Proclamation 1181 in 1973, moving the annual celebration to Sept. 21 to coincide with the establishment of his so-called “Bagong Lipunan” or New Society.
The New Society movement was an envisioned nationwide socio-political initiative that was supposed to be similar with the “Great Leap Forward” in China, the “New Order Administration” of President Suharto in Indonesia, and the “Juche” of Kim Il-sung of North Korea.
The Marcos-decreed celebration of National Thanksgiving Day every Sept. 21 ceased after the Feb. 22-25, 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, which forced the Marcos family to flee to Hawaii.
As recalled by this writer, the first celebration of National Thanksgiving Day in the Philippines on Sept. 21, 1973 was welcomed very much by the majority of the Filipinos from all walks of life nationwide.
This could be gleaned from reports filed by correspondents and stringers of the then seven-month-old Philippine News Agency (PNA) based in key areas of the country from Northern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The reports were submitted to me as the first national and provincial news editor of the PNA at that time.
PNA was organized on March 1, 1973 to replace the former Philippine News Service or PNS, the country’s first privately-owned news agency that ceased operations as a result of the imposition of martial law.
Exactly 52 years on this coming Sept. 21, the late former president Marcos Sr. signed Proclamation No. 1081 that placed the entire country under a state of martial law which, he said, “was a final recourse to combat two principal sources of grave danger to Philippine society and the government.”
He cited such dangers as a rebellion mounted by a strange conspiracy of leftist and rightist radicals, and a secessionist movement supported by foreign parties.
“Martial law, together with the New Society that has emerged from its reforms, is in fact a revolution of the poor, for it is aimed at protecting the individual, helpless until then, from the power of the oligarchs,” Marcos said in the preface of his book, “The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines” (Third Edition) published by the Marcos Foundation Inc. in 1977.
Although dated Sept. 21, a Thursday, the proclamation of martial law in accordance with the provision of the 1935 Constitution was officially announced by the President in a radio-television address beamed nationwide two days later (Sept. 23, 1972).
Although described as a “smiling martial law” by the then Marcos administration, its imposition became very controversial and deeply divided the nation.
Since a national election was scheduled in November of the following year, political opponents of FM accused him of just wanting to prolong his reign beyond the two presidential terms of four years each allowed by the Constitution.
On the other hand, most of the Filipinos welcomed the proclamation, saying it paved the way for the existence of peace once more across the country and restored discipline among the people.
The threats posed by the Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM), as well as the secessionist move of the Moro National Liberation Force (MNLF) were somehow decimated and the fragmentation of the country was prevented.
As a result, the barangays councils nationwide petitioned the President to issue a proclamation designating Sept. 21 of every year as National Thanksgiving Day for the Philippines. Marcos agreed and signed Proclamation No. 1181 of 1973 to that effect.
