Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Day

Magsaysay died on March 17, 1957, when the presidential aircraft went down on Mount Manunggal in Cebu. A Philippines Herald reporter named Nestor Mata was the lone survivor. Carried down the mountain and treated for burns in Cebu City, he dictated a dispatch to a nurse that began, "President Magsaysay is dead."

Nine years passed before the anniversary became a fixed national date. On March 7, 1966, President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed the proclamation that carries the day's name. The first observance followed ten days later.

On the first observance, in 1966, Marcos attended the ground-breaking of the Ramon Magsaysay Center at Plaza Militar in Malate. He and Imelda R. Marcos sent a wreath to the grave at Manila North Cemetery. The building opened in 1967, to a design by Alfredo J. Luz and Associates.

The rites outlived that generation. In March 2026, provincial officials, war veterans and representatives of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines laid flowers at the Magsaysay statue at his family's house in Castillejos, Zambales, now a museum. The province that had asked for the first day off was still holding the ceremony.