US Embassy in Manila closed Feb. 20 for President's Day

The United States Embassy in Manila will be closed on Monday, Feb. 20, in observance of President's Day, an American holiday. In an announcement on its Facebook page, the embassy said it will resume its normal services on Tuesday, Feb. 21. "The Embassy of the United States in Manila and its affiliated offices will be closed to the public on Monday, February 20, 2012, in observance of President’s Day, an American holiday," it said. US President's Day originally marks the birth anniversary of US President George Washington but is considered to honor all US presidents. It is listed as one of the holidays observed by the US Embassy in Manila. Presidents’ Day, officially Washington’s Birthday, is a US holiday observed on the third Monday in February, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. It said the date is popularly recognized as honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln but is sometimes understood as a "celebration of the birthdays and lives of all US presidents." Britannica said the origin of Presidents’ Day dates back in the 1880s, when the birthday of Washington, then commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and the first president of the United States, was first celebrated as a federal holiday. In 1968 US Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, which moved a number of federal holidays to Mondays. The change was designed to schedule certain holidays so that workers had a number of long weekends throughout the year, but it has been opposed by those who believe that those holidays should be celebrated on the dates they actually commemorate. During debate on the bill, it was proposed that Washington’s Birthday be renamed Presidents’ Day to honor the birthdays of both Washington (February 22) and Lincoln (February 12). Congress rejected the name change but after the bill went into effect in 1971, Presidents’ Day became the commonly accepted name, due in part to retailers’ use of that name to promote sales and the holiday’s proximity to Lincoln’s birthday. — LBG GMA News