Whatever happened to the holiday rush and crush? Metropolitan Filipinos, known for overdoing the Christmas season and playing carols as soon as the calendar hits September, appear to have drastically toned down their usual exuberance this year.
The likely culprits are of course the dismal economic conditions and the painful impeachment proceedings. By the looks of it, when politics and economics are both in the muck, even the national fiesta of Christmastime has to suffer.
Oddly those who have more resources have become the most austere. The business community seems to be overdoing their protest by going into mourning -- a lot of buildings in the Ayala and Ortigas business centers have done away with their Christmas lights, revealing the Scrooge-like tendencies of the owners. I drove by some of the richer neighborhoods in the Pasig-Quezon City area and was surprised to see perfunctory lights in Valle Verde and long, dark stretches in La Vista.
Trust the lower middle-class and lower-income communities to put on a brave front in the lights department, as I have noticed in Novaliches, Commonwealth and Fairview. The lighting installations hung along boulevards and avenues, a standard holiday project of the local government, have been replaced by lanterns proclaiming a new shampoo.
I have never been a fan of the overextended and over-wrought Pinoy Christmas, with its overtones of crass commercialism (endless Christmas music at the malls till your eardrums bleed), but this year I'm disturbed that I haven't been bothered that much by the usual hype and hustle. Even Shoemart is obviously underpacked with shoppers, with the exception of the last weekend which was also just after payday. The crush of shoppers, the frenzied selling, people overspending with each member of the family holding bags from this and that store, these are scenes I haven't witnessed lately. I think the malls have even taken care to tone down the Christmas carols lest the tunes rub in the tight financial reality.
This is the first bleak metropolitan Christmas I've seen and I lived here during the Cory Aquino brownout years. Erap must really be a national disaster. This has become the season for us to pray for deliverance from our own mistaken choices and to remember that God's most precious son Christ the Redeemer came into our world in the most humble circumstances.
December 2000