The other face of
Christmas

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

It was just about 4 p.m., and Fiesta Mall, the mother of duty-free shops in the country, had ran out of shopping carts. And the line of excited families wanting to lay their hands on the duty-free goods but had to wait for carts was getting longer by the minute. Parking was terrible as jeeploads of shoppers descended on this mecca of imported goods.

The same spectacle was happening at such supposedly-exclusive enclaves as S and R, the membership shopping place: one waited for carts, and when one found one, had to skillfully navigate the aisles full of shoppers loading up. It was an unprecedented shopping experience: one barely moved from aisle to aisle, like one was in a bumper to bumper traffic.

And December is just starting.

At about the same time, in Greenhills, a balikbayan said she was astounded by the full crowd. I know GH is always crammed with people, but not like this! she said. One source for awe to this new American: people were buying cellphones, expensive ones, without batting their eyelashes! She said she cannot believe what she was seeing and hearing: young people buying phones worth P20,000 like they were galit sa pera (angry at money). Is there really this much money in the Philippines now? she asked.

There was a barely concealed skepticism there, from this woman who fled to the US of A in the 80s, when economic options were running out for her and her husband here. Now, she and her husband have built a nice life for their family in the US, and had just taken the allegiance that made them technically foreigners in their land of birth. And now she returned to a Philippines that is, surprisingly for her, starting to offer wider economic options, maybe even more so than in recession-hit America.

News that we had a surprising seven percent growth had just been released, and so have the Christmas bonuses, no doubt fueling the frenzy in the malls and shopping lines. And while the sour grapes and the perpetual pessimists refuse to believe the positive, things are looking up indeed, at least on the surface.

It's the first week of December and we are buying at a place like no other. One certified shopaholic I know just could not stand the situation; even the VIP lines are crowded. This must be one very merry Christmas for business.

Yet, one night while we made the turn from the Shang complex to EDSA, an unwashed waif darted from nowhere and ran through the dark street, carrying a plastic bag with yellow-brown fluid in it. Then, with a form that indicated he must have had a lot of practice on this, he flung the fluid-filled plastic, sending it flying in the air, and right smack at an open truck loaded with people. The fluid splattered, and the people it fell on had to angrily clean themselves as the waif was joined by his comrades, all laughing lustily now, cheering at his successful hit. All this happened at the height of traffic: the truck speeding forward and our car following behind, along with the ruffians who had inspired fear in me: they just could throw another bag of fluid at us.

It is the other face of Christmas, an ironic reality, a reminder, even a warning. Prosperity can be choosy, and there is need to make sure it is enjoyed by all, or at least by as many people as possible. As if to emphasize that, the other popular story in the Metropolis now is about that young boy who got disengaged from his mother inside a popular mall, drugged by criminals, shaven, and nearly kidnapped if not for the timely shut down of the entrances. There are various versions of this, but the message is the same, I think: unless we spread the good cheers equitably, our nights won’t be silent nor holy, not even if it’s Christmas.*

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