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Sunday, December 12, 2004
Cabaero: What Christmas spending?
By Nini B. Cabaero
It's the season for giving. What it means is it's the season for Christmas lists and shopping for presents for family, friends, neighbors and strangers. And those in financial management emphasize the importance of coming up with spending budgets, most especially if there is little for you to spend for the holidays.
Recent reports have shown that Christmas spending this year would either rise slightly or remain the same as last year. For many Filipinos, there could be the forced reduction in spending limits because of many constraints. Still, there are others for whom there is no Christmas spending to speak of at all.
Last year, an average shopper in the United States spent US $583 (or P32,648 at exchange rate of US $1:P56) on presents. This year, experts said spending is to rise slightly or remain the same. A Gallup poll said one in six Americans plan to spend more on Christmas gifts this year. That is for the US. Clearly.
In the Philippines, for some people, what Christmas spending is there to speak of?
Not when inflation is at 7 to 8 percent in a month, the fastest in over five years. Not when vegetables prices have been jacked up by 100 to 200 percent following the recent super typhoons that claimed hundreds of lives.
Not when oil prices have been adjusted upwards several times and power rates followed soon after as if they--gasoline and electricity--were conjoined twins. Not when the Filipino purchasing power has been degraded further.
There are a lot of "nots" when it comes to how much Christmas spending can Filipinos afford. For many who find themselves continually financially-challenged, Christmas giving will rest largely in creative and alternative ways to keep them from going bankrupt, getting deeper in debt or "maxing out" on credit cards.
That is not what Christmas is all about, however.
What matters most is not how much we spend for Christmas shopping but how we spend Christmas to experience its meaning in our dealings with family, friends, neighbors and community and in lending a hand to those in need. Showing appreciation and sharing love are not done through gifts alone.
Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth and not a shopping bonanza. It is, as Pope John Paul II had said in past celebrations, an "event of light" that "dissipates the clouds of sin."
He said in 2001: "These words of light and hope may seem like words from a dream. But that is precisely the challenge of faith, which makes this proclamation at once comforting and demanding. It make us feel that we are wrapped in the tender love of God, while at the same time it commits us to a practical love of God and of our neighbor."
(ninicab@sunstar.com.ph)
(December 12, 2004 issue)
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