Christmas in the Philippines

     I don't know if this is due to my not being in the country for years before stroke sent me back here to my village. The gaiety over Christmas the moment September 1 comes is over the top, I really feel. It's too commercial, an elitist act that mask the real probems of the society, the real issues of the common people. 

     Christmas songs are now playing on the airwaves, totally far from what I used to see when Christmas feels only on Christmas day although shopping malls in Singapore adorn their malls at the start of December. In the US, I see they put up Christmas trees on Christmas day. 

Christmas decorations are selling like hotcakes now 

     This is too much, an escapism to hide the realities of the society. It's the Spanish culture of celebration pervading on the psyche of society. It's a weapon of the rich diverting the focus from the harsh realities, from the simple lives of the poor who are not so in the gaiety.

     The elites are into the celebration forgetting that many poor people in the countryside are struggling on survival. What they do diverts the attention of many from the stark realities of society. They hide the pain and worry of the poor because they just want the festive mood beginning September until Christmas day, four months and a third of the year hiding the truth from the eyes of the public which foreigners get to see, not able to see the true situation in the grasscourt.

     This festive atmosphere distances Christmas in the Philippines far away from the true meaning of Christmas, of Jesus being born in a manger, and saddest part is that the Church is silent, kind of approving this kind of celebration. Maybe because many of the priests come from elite families, detached from the impoverished followers.