By Joel B. Belinan
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How time flies. It is now again the end of the year. If you observed, the early morning temperatures have started to go down and the sun rises much later than it did two weeks ago. Looking at the weekend crowd and even during one-day holidays like during the November 30 Bonifacio Day, more and more visitors from the lowlands are flocking to the city, and we expect their number to tremendously increase when the temperature dips even further toward the end of December and during the early weeks in January.
Indeed Christmas is here again, and “It’s the most expensive time of the year” not only in Christian countries but everywhere.
By the way, congratulations to the City Building, and Architects Office (CBAO) of the city government for the wonderful Christmas decorations and lightings along the main thoroughfares at the Central Business District and in parks. Christmas in Baguio events were officially started last December 1 with the ceremonial switching of the lights and the holding of the lantern parade of Saint Louis University, an annual event that was shelved the past two years due to the pandemic.
I now recall my stint as a missionary with the Ananda Marga Yoga Society which was based in Singapore in the 90s. Although Singapore is a multicultural and multi-religious city-state, Christianity is not considered a major religion. One December when I was tasked to man our Singapore office, I observed that while there were not many Christmas-related events going on, Christmas decorations were all over the city-estate not only in business establishments. The decors were done by the government.
Going back to that December Singapore experience, I was passing by our favorite electronic shop in downtown Singapore owned by our Ananda Marga member who hailed from India, I asked, How Are You? How is everything? This is a normal greeting as a friend. The guy said, “I am fine, thank you, and we are very happy Christmas is here again and business is very good this time of year”. Accordingly, people from all over South East Asia flock to this small city-state during December.
In short, Christmas to many is business, and I guess such an outlook is not only limited to that Indian but even to many Christians, Filipinos included. Extraordinary spending this time of year is not confined to the private sector but also the government. Those decorations and lighting in almost every place in this country, those Christmas parties, and junkets are of course paid for by Juan de La Cruz and did not just fall from heaven.
This is not to mention that it is during this period of the year when government offices would look for ways they could spend their respective unspent budgets lest these would be returned to the National Treasury. The sad thing here is that, emerging from the ashes of the more than two years of the Global Pandemic, we in the lower classes of society are now down on our knees, making the economic divide even more stark. Despite that, I am still very thankful that while we are barely managing our daily needs, my two kids are not the kind who spend much. To them and the family, we abide by the principle of contentment with whatever we have.**
