Sources: The Philippine Star, The Manila Times and Philippines Public Holidays. Late last week and yesterday, rumours started appearing that Monday, April 30, 2007, would be declared a "non-working day", instead of the May Day public holiday scheduled for Tuesday, May 1, 2007. Then, this afternoon (GMT), the Manila Times reported that Labor Secretary, Arturo Brion, came out squarely against the idea of declaring a non-working day at such a late date. Later, the Philippines Star reported that Executive Secretary, Eduardo Ermita, confirmed that Malacañang (the Philippines equivalent of the US White House) was standing by the date of May 1st.Analysis: Recall from our post of January 19 that for 2007, the government had promised the business community that it would specify any non-working days at the beginning of the year and not make any further changes. In that context, President Arroyo issued Proclamation No. 1211 on January 10, 2007, listing 4 non-working days in 2007: April 7, June 11, November 2 and December 24. Conspicuously absent from that list was Monday, April 30, although at the time it had been mentioned as a possible non-working day.
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