|
Monday, December 19, 2005
Editorial: Beyond window dressing
WHERE is Christmas in the time of Garci?
Though still proud to host the longest Christmas in Christendom, the nation’s mood seems bleaker, less celebratory this time.
One misses the lines snaking in front of cashiers. Despite dangled discounts, fewer bodies throng to the malls.
To think that in yesteryears, monster sales were merely triggered by a sweet soprano yearning to “give more than just presents from the store.”
But this time around, with even peddlers of fruit rejects and secondhand clothes muttering about their sales, it’s perhaps time to believe that the stories are really true.
Christmas is dead.
Seek
If all that we hear are coup stories and the death of confidence in leadership, perhaps Christmas is really dead.
Those of us who can’t find Christmas may be looking for it under the wrong trees.
Certainly Christmas cannot be found in lifestyle articles suggesting “lavish goodies” to give back to the spender. If you can’t treat yourself to a P3.9-million watch with red straps, the times are indeed tough for a luxe Christmas.
Deprivation though is a matter of the heart. Some poverties are worse than being unable to give friends a P62,000 trinket of tiny dogs and miniature boots.
From the grief of losing their children, a group of mothers made not only the difficult climb back to living with their loss. The Ina (Inang Naulila sa Anak) Foundation set up a healing center where mothers with limited resources can seek counseling from professionals.
According to a Dec. 16 report of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), the Ina Healing Center will rise in the Department of Social Welfare and Development compound in Quezon City.
Ina Foundation co-founder Gina de Venecia, who lost her daughter in a fire last year, said that, “It’s not true that mothers who belong to poor families do not grieve as much. They do, and they need the same emotional and psychological help as every mother who lost a child does.”
Fly
You may not hear Christmas brightening the horizons of the 2.6 million Filipinos found jobless and not even looking for work last October, according to the National Statistics Office
Neither do others see any glimmer of hope in these figures from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration: 809,140 workers have sought employment outside the country in the first 10 months of 2005, up from 794,806 in the same period in 2004.
We are bleeding to death, doomsayers say. We are losing the best of our blue- and white-collar workers to the thriving overseas sectors in construction, oil and gas exploration, tourism, health, and information and communications technology.
What is left to do but join them?
Except that, so many nights ago, shepherds came upon the infant Savior born among farm animals.
In praise of this rare quality to rise above adversity, reader J. R. Jensen wrote a letter published in the Dec. 15 letters section of the PDI.
A company CEO taking a cruise with his Filipina wife, Jensen said he was impressed by the values of Arlene C. Pimentel, a “22-year-old bar attendant from Manila... (who worked) seven days a week, 16 hours a day on board Costa Mediterranea for eight months straight.”
When a Honduran performer suddenly quit, Pimentel offered to sing in her place. “The theme of the show was ‘World Showcase,’ but all of the passengers clearly realized (Pimentel’s singing) was a demonstration of Filipino talent,” wrote Jensen. “She and the entire Filipino cast were given a standing ovation, the only (one) given that entire week of performances.”
Whether it is sacrificing to provide for families back home or putting their heart in what they do, Filipinos show they, too, can harvest “marvelous strength of resolve and spirit” in the most trying times.
Believe
If we are indeed so poor, why are there no empty seats in the nine-day dawn masses marking advent?
If Christmas is dead, why are there far-flung barrios that celebrate this ritual even without a priest?
Last Dec. 16, PDI reported that the practice known as “Christmas Liturgies in the Absence of a Priest” is the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ way of reaching out to Filipinos despite the shortage of shepherds. There is only one diocesan priest for every 15,000 Catholics
Simbang Gabi began in Mexico, after the clergy secured authorization from the Vatican to hold outdoor masses to accommodate the crowds spilling out of churches.
Today, the dawn masses still answer “a need to respond to the temper of the times.” The sea of the faithful waiting for blessings before heading for home or work witnesses that, in their acceptance of the gift of believing, they keep Christmas very much alive.
(December 19, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here.
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
