January 3 – Eleven worshipers die when fire broke out in a Buddhist temple in Manila.[1]
April
April 7 – General elections are held for the election of the 166 (out of 208) regional representatives to the Interim Batasang Pambansa (the nation's first parliament). The elections are contested by the leading opposition party, the Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) which had twenty-one candidates for the Metro Manila area and the leading candidate is the jailed opposition leader Ninoy Aquino while the regime's party known as the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) which is led by the then First Lady Imelda Marcos.
September 14 – A Philippine Air Force plane, carrying members of President Ferdinand E. Marcos' security staff and journalists, crash in Manila while trying to land in a thunderstorm. At least 32 persons are killed.[1]
October
October 27 – Typhoon Rita pummels Manila with winds up to 94 miles per hour (150 kilometers per hour). At least 20 are killed and 70,000 left homeless in the floods that resulted.[1]
November
November 21 – Batas Pambansa Bilang 7 establishes Aurora, then a sub-province and an administrative area in Quezon, as an independent province; it would be ratified in a plebiscite in May 1979.[2]
As per Act No. 2711 section 29,[3] issued on March 10, 1917, any legal holiday of fixed date falls on Sunday, the next succeeding day shall be observed as legal holiday. Sundays are also considered legal religious holidays. Bonifacio Day was added through Philippine Legislature Act No. 2946. It was signed by then-Governor General Francis Burton Harrison in 1921.[4] On October 28, 1931, the Act No. 3827 was approved declaring the last Sunday of August as National Heroes Day.[5] As per Republic Act No. 3022,[6] April 9 was proclaimed as Bataan Day. Independence Day was changed from July 4 (Philippine Republic Day) to June 12 (Philippine Independence Day) on August 4, 1964.[7]
December 9–20 – The Philippines participated in the 1978 Asian Games held in Bangkok, Thailand. It ranked ninth with 4 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 6 bronze medals with a total of 14 over-all medals.