Is Apolinario Mabini Day the same as Mabini Day?

Yes, both names describe July 23. Proclamation No. 2367 of 1984 calls it Mabini Day and Republic Act No. 9430 of 2007 calls it Apolinario Mabini Day.

Is July 23 the day Mabini was born or the day he died?

He was born on July 23, 1864, and died on May 13, 1903. The National Historical Commission marks the death anniversary separately, with flag-raising and wreath-laying rites in May.

Why is July 23 also Batangas City Foundation Day?

Republic Act No. 11377 makes July 23 a special working holiday in the City of Batangas in commemoration of that city's founding anniversary. The two observances share a date and a province, and nothing else.

Apolinario Mabini Day

Next celebratedFriday, July 23, 2027

Batangas keeps July 23 as a non-working holiday for Apolinario Mabini, the lawyer who lost the use of both legs to polio in 1896 and then ran Emilio Aguinaldo's cabinet.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 3, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJuly 23

OBSERVED INPhilippines

CATEGORYCulture

SUBCATEGORYFamous People

ORIGIN

Government Proclamation

FOUNDING ENTITY

Office of the President of the Philippines

FIRST OBSERVED

1954

“Four words did it, in 1984: and every year thereafter.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Presidents renewed it yearly before one order made it permanent.

Philippine presidents declared July 23 a special public holiday for Apolinario Mabini's birthday one year at a time, at least as far back as Ramon Magsaysay's Proclamation No. 45 of 7 July 1954. Proclamation No. 2367 made the holiday permanent for Batangas in 1984, and Republic Act No. 9430 attached the name Apolinario Mabini Day to a special working holiday in the City of Tanauan in 2007.

Read the 1984 Mabini Day proclamationvia Official Gazette of the Philippines

INTRO

From the whole country down to one province

Twice in the 1950s a Philippine president gave the entire country July 23 off for a paralysed lawyer from Batangas. Proclamation No. 312 in 1956 and Proclamation No. 426 in 1957 each declared the date a special public holiday throughout the Philippines. Apolinario Mabini Day is a much smaller thing now.

The standing day off reaches one province. The statute that actually carries Mabini's name reaches one city, and what it grants there is a special working holiday, which is a designation rather than a day off. Same date, two very different instruments.

Mabini never walked again after 1896. The work he is remembered for came afterwards.

ORIGINS

Apolinario Mabini Day history

INTRODUCTION

Apolinario Mabini was arrested by the Guardia Civil on 10 October 1896, both legs already paralysed. The Spanish authorities put him under house arrest at San Juan de Dios Hospital instead of shooting him. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines puts it flatly: "His condition saved him from being shot."

Two years later Emilio Aguinaldo came home from exile and sent runners to Bay, Laguna, to fetch him. Twelve municipalities were ordered to supply the manpower to carry Mabini in a hammock to Cavite. They met on 12 June 1898, and he became the general's indispensable adviser on state matters.

CHAPTER 01

A holiday signed one year at a time

For decades no statute protected the date. Presidents signed the holiday into being one proclamation at a time, under section 30 of the Revised Administrative Code. The earliest one located is Ramon Magsaysay's Proclamation No. 45 of 7 July 1954, which gave the province of Batangas the day.

The habit outlasted him. Diosdado Macapagal signed one for the centennial in 1964. His proclamation asked for "appropriate ceremonies in tribute to the legacy he has left to the present generation".

CHAPTER 02

Marcos took the day away, then made it permanent

In 1983 Ferdinand Marcos declared July 23 Apolinario Mabini Day across Batangas province and the cities of Lipa and Batangas. Then he added a sentence that undid it: "The day, however, shall be a regular working and school day."

A year later he reversed himself. Proclamation No. 2367 renamed the date Mabini Day, made it a special non-working public holiday for Batangas and the cities within it, and extended it to every year thereafter.

CHAPTER 03

Congress wrote the name into law, minus the day off

The name in law came last. House Bill No. 4575 of the 13th Congress, credited to Victoria H. Reyes, asked for a special nonworking holiday in the City of Tanauan.

What Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed on 10 April 2007 said something else. Republic Act No. 9430 declares July 23 a special working holiday in that city, to be known as Apolinario Mabini Day. One word changed between the bill and the law, and it is the word that decides whether anybody goes home.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Magsaysay signs the earliest known order

Proclamation No. 45 declared July 23 a special public holiday in the province of Batangas, for the birthday of the Sublime Paralytic.

The holiday narrows to Batangas

Carlos P. Garcia's Proclamation No. 518 reached only the province of Batangas and the City of Lipa.

A centennial worth closing for

Diosdado Macapagal's Proclamation No. 267 declared the date a special public holiday so that people could mark Mabini's centennial birthday.

Mabini Day becomes permanent

Proclamation No. 2367 named the date Mabini Day, made it non-working across Batangas, and extended it to every year thereafter.

Congress puts the name in law

Republic Act No. 9430 declared July 23 a special working holiday in the City of Tanauan, to be known as Apolinario Mabini Day.

A president speaks at the shrine

Benigno S. Aquino III marked the 150th birth anniversary with a speech at the Mabini Shrine in Tanauan, Batangas.

AT A GLANCE

Apolinario Mabini at a glance

Born: 23 July 1864, barrio Talaga, Tanauan, Batangas
Died: 13 May 1903, Manila, of cholera, aged 38
Known as: the Sublime Paralytic; the brains of the Philippine Revolution
Office: President of the Council of Secretaries and Secretary of Foreign Affairs
Wrote: El Verdadero Decalogo, Programa Constitucional de la Republica Filipina, La Revolucion Filipina
Paralysis: polio, confirmed when doctors examined his bones in 1980

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Apolinario Mabini Day

MEMORY

Signed in 1967. The road signs caught up in 2014.

Proclamation No. 234 named the bridge at Nagtahan Street in Manila the Mabini Bridge in 1967, and the Presidential Museum and Library records that "little notice was made of this, and in time the name was forgotten". The Department of Public Works and Highways changed the road signs to read Mabini Bridge for the sesquicentennial in 2014.

DISABILITY

The agency that counts him as one of its own

The Philippine government's disability agency, the National Council on Disability Affairs, publishes a profile of Mabini among its featured Filipinos with disabilities. Its director at the time, Carmen Zubiaga, said in 2014 that he remains an inspiration "for sharing his life and intelligence, despite his disability".

WAGES

A day off that is not automatically paid

Under the Department of Labor and Employment's rule for a special non-working day, workers get no pay if they do not work, unless a company orders otherwise. Anyone who does report for work is owed an additional 30 percent of their basic wage for the first eight hours of work.

Thou shalt consider thy countryman more than thy neighbor; thou shalt see him thy friend, thy brother or at least thy comrade, with whom thou art bound by one fate, by the same joys and sorrows and by common aspirations and interests.

Apolinario MabiniAuthor of The True Decalogue

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Apolinario Mabini Day

Visit the museum in his birthplace

A two-floor museum stands on the site where Mabini was born, in barangay Talaga, Tanauan, with seven galleries across 2,000 square metres. At its 2014 relaunch it opened daily except Mondays, free of charge.

JOIN

Join the rites at the Tanauan shrine

The National Historical Commission and the city government of Tanauan led commemorative rites at the Apolinario Mabini Shrine at 8 a.m. on 23 July 2026. A Mabini descendant, Rico Mabini Talagsad, was among the guests.

READ

Read The True Decalogue straight through

Mabini wrote its ten precepts as an introduction to the draft constitution he prepared for the Philippine Republic. The National Historical Commission publishes the full English text under its biography of him.

CHECK

Check your change for his portrait

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas put Mabini on the ten-piso coin when it released the New Generation Currency Coin Series on 26 March 2018. Andres Bonifacio is on the five-piso and Jose Rizal on the one-piso.

Follow his manuscripts back to Laguna

Mabini hid in Alejandro Quidayan's house in Bay, Laguna, in 1898, and the family kept his papers. The commission acquired them in 2014, among them a rare booklet holding four works in Tagalog.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Apolinario Mabini Day?

1 / 9

Republic Act No. 9430 makes July 23 a holiday in exactly one place. Which?

Answer

Not nationally. Proclamation No. 1006, which sets the Philippines' regular holidays and special non-working days for 2026, carries no July 23 entry; the date is a special working holiday in the City of Tanauan under Republic Act No. 9430 and a special non-working public holiday for Batangas province under Proclamation No. 2367.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

22sources

16primary records

20independently dated

Primary records

The LawPhil Project, Arellano Law Foundation2007

Republic Act No. 9430

The 2007 act naming July 23 a special working holiday in Tanauan.