About Yamashita surrender
President Rodrigo Duterte has declared 3rd September of every year as a special working public holiday throughout the country in commemoration of the surrender of the Japanese military forces led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita in Baguio City.
Work and classes are not suspended on special working public holidays. Those who go to work are paid their regular rate, although they can also reflect on how that is better than living through the Japanese occupation, which ended in 1945.
The bill that led to RA 11216 initially proposed a non-working holiday for Baguio City on September 3rd to mark the occasion. Rep. Mark Go (Baguio City), who filed the bill in the 17th Congress said it was fitting to declare a holiday in the city where World War II in the Philippines started and ended.
"Many Filipinos are unaware that Baguio was where the Second World War in the Philippines began. After the bombing of the Pearl Harbor, the first casualty of Japanese air raids in Luzon was Camp John Hay together with Manila," Go said in the explanatory note for his bill.
"When the US troops returned, Baguio was again targeted by the first air raid on January 6th 1945. What followed after was an almost daily carpet bombing which nearly destroyed the City of Baguio. US planes bombed the City Hall, Session Road and even the front of the Baguio Cathedral, killing hundreds of civilians who sought shelter inside," Go also said.
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