Eid’l Adha – September 12 2016 Philippine holiday
UPDATED, SEPTEMBER 6
Filipino Muslims will join the rest of the Islamic world in observing Eid’l Adha or their annual feast of sacrifice this September 12, Monday. That day has been declared a regular national holiday by President Rodrigo Duterte through Proclamation 56, which was released Tuesday afternoon. The holiday will effectively create a three-day weekend for most Filipinos.
Eid’l Adha is a national holiday mandated by Republic Act (RA) 9849, which was signed in 2009 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The full text of RA 9849 can be read here. The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos is the government agency tasked with recommending to the President a date where the holiday should fall.
Speculation about which date the holiday will push through has been going on for weeks now. The Filipino Scribe, for instance, is perhaps the first one to report that the Eid’l Adha holiday will be on September 12 because that’s the date selected in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries.
Eid’l Adha, according to RA 9849, has great significance because it is the tenth day in the month of Hajj or Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca “wherein Muslims pay homage to Abraham’s supreme act of sacrifice and signifies mankind’s obedience to God.”
Eid’l Adha is one of the two Muslim holidays observed all over the country – the other one is Eid’l Fitr which was celebrated last July 6. The NCMF is the government agency tasked to determine the dates to which the holidays will fall based on Hijra or the Islamic calendar.
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