TL;DR: Araw ng Kagitingan falls on April 9 and is a regular holiday. Three issuances stack up behind it: Republic Act No. 3022 proclaimed 9 April as Bataan Day and made it a legal holiday in 1961; Executive Order No. 203, s. 1987 renamed it Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan and Corregidor Day) and placed it among the regular holidays; and Section 26 of the Administrative Code, as amended by Republic Act No. 9492 and Republic Act No. 9849, carries the current statutory list, where the entry still reads "Monday nearest April 9." In practice the annual presidential proclamation, not the statute, decides the observed date for any given year, and recent proclamations have kept it on April 9 itself. For schools, DepEd lists the commemoration in Annex D of DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026 with lesson integration and classroom-level activities as the suggested mode. We do not publish class suspension announcements.
Araw ng Kagitingan is one of those holidays everyone knows the date of and almost nobody can name the law for. That gap matters more than it sounds, because the statute and the calendar have said two different things for nearly two decades. This guide sets out which issuance does what, why the wording differs, and what the day actually requires of a school.
The Three Layers of Law
| Issuance | Year | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| Republic Act No. 3022 | 1961 | Proclaimed the ninth day of April as Bataan Day and amended the Revised Administrative Code to include 9 April among the legal holidays |
| Executive Order No. 203 | 1987 | Revised the whole roster of nationwide holidays, renamed the day Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan and Corregidor Day), and listed it among the regular holidays |
| Executive Order No. 292, Section 26, as amended by Republic Act No. 9492 and Republic Act No. 9849 | 1987, amended 2007 and 2009 | Carries the current statutory list of regular holidays and nationwide special days |
Republic Act No. 3022 is the origin, and it is worth reading because it does something the later issuances do not. Its Section 1 does not merely create a day off. It enjoins citizens to observe the day "with a one-minute silence at 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and to hold appropriate rites in honor of the heroic defenders of Bataan and their parents, wives and/or widows." The observance is written into the law as a positive act, not as an absence of work.
Executive Order No. 203, s. 1987, issued under President Corazon Aquino, rebuilt the national holiday list from scratch and gave the day its present name. Its regular holidays are New Year's Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan and Corregidor Day) on April 9, Labor Day, Independence Day, National Heroes Day, Bonifacio Day, Christmas Day and Rizal Day.
Why the Statute Says "Monday Nearest April 9"
This is the part that confuses people who go looking for the primary source, and it has a straightforward explanation.
Republic Act No. 9492, passed in 2007, amended the Administrative Code to make several holidays movable, a policy popularly called holiday economics. The idea was that shifting certain holidays to a Monday would produce long weekends and encourage domestic travel and spending. Araw ng Kagitingan was one of the holidays moved into that scheme, and Republic Act No. 9849 in 2009 amended the same section again, mainly to add Eidul Adha.
The result is that the current statutory entry reads "Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan and Corregidor Day) - Monday nearest April 9," sitting alongside "Labor Day - Monday nearest May 1" and "Independence Day - Monday nearest June 12." The same section also carries the rule that a holiday falling on a Wednesday is observed on the Monday of that week, and one falling on a Sunday on the following Monday.
In practice, that movable rule stopped being applied to this holiday. Administrations since have kept Araw ng Kagitingan on 9 April itself, and the annual presidential proclamation is what settles it. For 2026, Proclamation No. 1006 declared the regular holidays and special non-working days and placed Araw ng Kagitingan on April 9.
The practical takeaway is a rule rather than a date: the operative document for any given year is that year's proclamation. The statute tells you the holiday exists and what category it is in. The proclamation tells you when it is observed. Anyone quoting a date for a future year from the statute alone is quoting text that has not matched practice for years. Our Philippine school holidays guide covers the regular holiday versus special non-working day distinction in more detail.
Regular Holiday, and Why the Category Matters
A regular holiday is not the same thing as a special non-working day, and the difference is a pay difference rather than a schedule difference. Regular holidays carry stronger statutory pay treatment under the Labor Code than special days, which generally follow a no-work-no-pay principle unless a more favourable company policy or agreement applies.
One rule is specific to schools and catches people out every April. The implementing rules of Book III of the Labor Code provide that private school teachers, including faculty members of colleges and universities, may not be paid for the regular holidays during semestral vacations, but shall be paid for the regular holidays during the Christmas vacation. Whether April 9 falls inside a vacation period therefore depends on the school calendar in force, which is exactly why the answer changes from year to year and from school to school. Our guide to DepEd teacher benefits covers the public-sector side, and payroll questions belong with your own school administration.
Disclaimer: holiday pay treatment depends on your employment status, your employer's policy, any collective agreement, and the labour advisory issued for that specific holiday. Nothing here is employment advice. Confirm with your school or with the Department of Labor and Employment.
What DepEd Asks Schools to Do
DepEd handles the day in two separate places within the same order, and the distinction is useful.
Annex C of DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026, the guidelines on the three-term school calendar, carries a non-exhaustive list of nationwide regular and special holidays under Republic Act No. 9492. Araw ng Kagitingan appears there as a regular holiday, with the entry printed in its statutory form, Monday nearest April 9. That annex is about the calendar.
Annex D of the same order is the calendar of legislated activities and celebrations, and it is about the observance:
| Field | Entry for Araw ng Kagitingan |
|---|---|
| Legal basis | Executive Order No. 203, s. 1987 |
| Date | 9 |
| Objective | To hold appropriate rites in honor of the heroic defenders of Bataan and their parents, wives and/or widows |
| Suggested modes | Posting of advocacy materials; lesson integration; film showing at classroom level |
That objective line is lifted almost verbatim from Republic Act No. 3022, which is a nice piece of continuity across sixty-five years of issuances.
The order also sets a general rule covering every entry in Annex D: legislated activities are conducted strictly within the classroom through integration into regular teaching and learning, with teachers embedding the themes and objectives into relevant subject areas. Competitions and centrally initiated activities move into the End-of-Term Block. So the modern DepEd expectation for this commemoration is a history or social studies lesson and possibly a film, not a programme in the quadrangle. Our guide to the DepEd school calendar for SY 2026-2027 covers that structure, alongside the way other observances such as Buwan ng Wika and Nutrition Month are now handled.
On Class Suspensions
We do not publish class suspension announcements, and a static page is the wrong instrument for that question. Whether classes are held on a particular April 9 depends on the proclamation for that year, on where the date falls in the school calendar then in force, and on any separate local announcement.
The three places to check are the presidential proclamation for the year in question, your school or schools division office, and the local government unit for anything weather-related or locally declared. Any page that claims to answer this for a future year is guessing.
What Is Actually Being Commemorated
April 9, 1942 is the date of the Fall of Bataan, when a large force of Filipino and American troops surrendered to Japanese forces after months of resistance on the peninsula. The 1987 renaming added Corregidor to the parenthetical, extending the commemoration to the island fortress that held out afterwards.
Two features of the observance are worth teaching because they are written into law rather than invented by schools:
- The one-minute silence at 4:30 in the afternoon, from Republic Act No. 3022.
- The inclusion of families in the honour, since the statute names the parents, wives and widows of the defenders alongside the defenders themselves. That is unusual phrasing for a holiday law and it is the detail most classroom material leaves out.
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Sources
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 3022 (1961), An Act Proclaiming the Ninth Day of April as Bataan Day and Declaring it as a Legal Holiday
- LawPhil — Executive Order No. 203, s. 1987, providing a list of regular holidays and special days, where the day is renamed Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan and Corregidor Day)
- LawPhil — Republic Act No. 9849 (2009), amending Section 26, Chapter 7, Book I of Executive Order No. 292, the current statutory list of regular holidays
- DepEd — DO 009, s. 2026: Guidelines on the Implementation of the Three-Term School Calendar in Basic Education, source of Annex C and Annex D (official)
- Philippine News Agency — Palace releases official list of 2026 holidays, reporting Proclamation No. 1006
- SchoolFinderPH — Philippine School Holidays
- SchoolFinderPH — DepEd School Calendar SY 2026-2027
