Araw Ng Kagitingan: Salute To Present-Day Heroes

On April 6, 1961 or exactly 60 years ago this week, Congress passed Republic Act 3022 that was signed into law by President Carlos P. Garcia “proclaiming the ninth day of April as Bataan Day and declaring it as a legal holiday.”

The continuing observance of quarantine restrictions mutes anew this year’s observance. Yet the events that transpired on April 9, 1942 remain etched in the national memory.

A radio broadcast message, written by Captain Salvador P. Lopez (who became President of the University of the Philippines) was announced by Third Lieutenant Normando Ildefonso Reyes on the Voice of Freedom radio broadcast from the Malinta Tunnel in Corregidor island, across Bataan: “Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this war-ravaged and bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With heads bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.”