“Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!” Many dozens of times this good natured salutation have been blurted by countless people for the past weeks and coming weeks to come.
Indeed, it’s the season’s compliment; there’s that right good will in its delivery to anyone by anybody then, than in the usual generality of other compliments we oft hear, like “Good morning, Good evening, etcetera.”
Such spirited and blithesome liveliness of the face, the straightforward and sunny tone of the voice and the uneven yet friendly pressure of the shake hand extended, go along with the words as complimentary.
Obviously, import of the message, which is – opposite to ordinary practice of messages one hears often daily – “I mean what I say,” when one voices out “Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”
People from all walks of life in Cordillera deem there’s less selfishness at Christmas than any other time.
Daily Laborer, on the one hand, is bent believing inhabitants in this highland region appear, this Christmas season, to pay more attention to that much-neglected scriptural injunction, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Or so, Daily Laborer thinks, even if it’s simply hard to believe it happens.
For sometimes, as we cross Baguio streets early mornings, or jog at city parks, we chance upon people shivering and sleeping on steps of Maharlika building or on cemented niches of the parks. Such unsettling scenes hark us back to the cares and over-reaching schemes of those who struggle for existence in this great city, even for a brief, a very a very brief space.
As these city’s street people sleep off their hunger.
When people who have no abode to call home and go to sleep less of supper, the stomach is more thought of than a purse; when such human thinks seriously of his/her stomach – with a fair prospect of dreaming his delectable visions unrealized – his/her natural disposition dies with him/her.
And they are, indeed, very vulnerable. Vulnerable, they think least of others’ comfort.
Still, there’s a spark of hope that springs eternal in the breasts of many Baguio residents and others in Cordillera who see these street people or those disabled and forced to beg on the city’s overpass, as you often may witness.
They, the young and old, youth and even children, who have no illusion of saving mankind from starvation, would pause and surreptitiously drop a coin or two into the begging hands of these disabled, ever mindful of the fact that what they’re doing is frowned by the law, in fact, a no-no.
Not that they scoff at the law. No! On the other hand, these kind, giving highland residents, with the state of misery of the disabled and vulnerable in their minds, secretly plunk their coins into the begging hands without thinking themselves having done guilt.
Because in doing so, they try to put themselves in the shoes of those who have less in life. Of being cold and comfortless on a cold, heartless pavement. Of not having a home that sings, “Come home, come home, the hearth is warm; supper is ready.”
Surely, they don’t want such experience. Hence, they part with their coins with fewer pangs than naturally accompanies the giving which is disagreeable to the government.
Their sympathies aren’t frozen this Christmas and their superfluous benevolence to bestow a little bit to these vulnerably disabled – and not to the habitual mendicants — exhibit their hearts are figuratively opened; their hearts hum.
Even as they wonder sadly if relatives of these begging disabled, truly have a care or two, for them.
Members of Baguio City Police Office (BCO) assigned at the city’s overpasses, with life and experience endeared by wisdom of age that don’t lessen enjoyment of life, and attentive to the fact that generous hearts this Christmas don’t chaff with the act of giving on the city’s flyovers, do understand the creed, “A little kindness will go a long way.”
Christmas time possesses one essential difference with the rest of the calendar months. That’s the cold weather. It’s not a drawback but a come-on, instead, for domestic and foreign visitors make a beeline to the highland city and experience the villainous vapor – the chilly fog.
And the ladies! Pleasant sight, it is, on a frosty Baguio morning to see comfortably-clad and comfortable-looking damsels tripping cheerfully with cheeks glowing reddish, glowing richly than the red rose. It’s said it’s only in Baguio – nowhere in the Philippines – where ladies acquire those rosy cheeks because of the complicit weather. A phenomenon none can contradict.
Gals who have the Christmas rosy cheeks know it. For that, their eyes sparkle, playing back upon their faces and laughing, they know not why and care not wherefore.
And overheard many times from the mouths of lady visitors, upon looking at Cordillera lasses with Christmas rosy cheeks, “Ay, nakaka-ingit naman. Namumula-mula ang mga pisngi nila.” If that isn’t extreme jealousy, then tell Daily Laborer what is?
Many splendid things have been sung about Christmas that are appropriate for good things. For music and humor, sweet talk and companionship, friendship and liquor, gaiety and dancing, “salidummay,” “pinikpikan” and “etag” parties, there is no time like Christmas.
A spirit of pleasure, a universal freedom from restraint lingers, the most discriminating relax, the most rigid melt. They sip wine and lisp jokes with non-liability. A buoyant farewell is taken of the parting year and as merrily, a welcome given to its successor.
Every December 25, less people attend to business and all sorts of employment momentarily shudder to a halt. Every December 24 and 25, it so seems old enemies try to bury the hatchet, become friends again, differences forgotten, intimacies renewed and a spirit of good will – befitting the season – wafts in the air.
“Merry Christmas,” lies scattered like a charm across Cordillera lands, fields, waters, its mountains and its hills. Even where the people who are fighting the government, the so-called New People’s Army, in their hidden lairs in the mountains are affected by the simple message, “Merry Christmas.” No doubt about it. Because Christmas is a spirit of reflection.
Daily Laborer keeps his fingers crossed that during this season, even those fighting the government want to spend time with their families, momentarily forgetting their ideology. Let peace reign supreme, among us, this Christmas. And reigning in all bosoms. Let Christmas melt the hardest of hearts.
Like what Daily Laborer overheard last week when he passed along Halsema Highway, of two drunks trying to settle their differences with fists and the other one, finally sobering up, relented and said to his co-drunk: “We shall not quarrel, of course. It’s barbarism. Let me instead greet you A Merry Christmas.”
And they went away howling merrily, following a path on staggered gaits.
In every individual home kitchen, rings the din of preparation. Those in charge of cooking, with voices like frogs in a fog, order their kitchen helpers with roars like, “Inkan pikpikan diay manok,” or, “” Ukisam diay patatas,” or, “I-prepara yu diay ingredients ti salad,” or, “I-adobo yu dayta karne,” or “Mapan yu apuyan diay uging ta agtunu kayo,” or, “Ayna, Mayang, nakseten diay kunak nga bantayam nga malutluto. Kunak nga bantayam, ngem ag cel-celphone ka met, aysus!”
This Christmas, do we eat more than what the Department of Health (DOH-CAR) deems necessary? That, to those who overindulge, is a matter of conjecture. For many are those Daily Laborer meet on the streets and bawl, “Ask not what you can do for your country this Christmas time. Ask what is for lunch”?
Such be the power of optimistic thinking, este, optimistic eating, yet the maxim still prevails:” Eat in moderation.”
Which brings to mind what occurred last week when politicians invited Daily Laborer to a simple Merry Christmas occasion in their office. Daily Laborer went.
And a disheveled man, drunk and reeked with the smell of booze, sat down at a sofa of the visitor’s lounge of a municipal hall in a town in Benguet – next to Daily Laborer. The man’s shirt was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick and half empty bottle of gin poked out from his jacket.
The man opened a Herald Express copy and began reading. After a few minutes, the man turned to Daily Laborer and asked, “Say, Manong Bony, what causes arthritis?”
“Well, friend, Daily Laborer began, by clearing his throat. “It’s is caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol, sleeping around with loose women and a contempt for one’s health.”
“Well, I will be damned,” the drunk muttered and returned to reading Herald Express.
Daily Laborer, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come on strong. How long have you had arthritis?”
“I don’t have arthritis, Manong Bony,” the drunk said and continued, “I was just reading here in your newspaper that the Pope does.”
Until now, Daily Laborer is trying to recall if ever Herald Express wrote such thing about the Pope, or, that the drunk poured one humor over his head.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! It’s not the gifts or, what are under the Christmas tree that matter; what matters are those around your Christmas tree this season.
