Where's the usual Christmas crowd?

Posted on December 8, 2006 - Filed Under |

NOT including Metro Manila where shopping has become a curse all year-round, typhoon or no typhoon, election or no election, where, o’ where have all the usual provincial Christmas shopping hordes gone? It’s barely two weeks before Christmas and the supermarkets and malls are yawning – wide.

What are people, would-be shoppers, waiting for? And we’re not the only one asking.

Even the businessman-mayor BSL is wondering about the anemic attendance in the usual business superstructures of the city. He admits to cutting by 30 % his Magic chain’s order of the usual cheese balls and ham fares, along with Christmas decors, the normally fast-selling items by this time of the year, after seeing how the crowds at the mall doors have not been materializing. Now, if Benjie Saplan Lim, the local supermart king, is wailing, imagine how this just-window-shopping phenomenon among people affects the smaller players on the block? It’s not just dampening, guys, it’s killing!

What are people waiting for? Santa? The traditional bonus pay?( We’ve got news for you: It’s long been spent, around late October or mid-November, especially among national government employees who got it much too early. Sorry, provincial worker guys, if you’re still lining up for it; maybe you’re all the luckier for that!).

Ahh, yes, the pre-election manna from politicians pala – how could we have forgotten that? It’s still the universal equalizer. Christmas season on a pre-election year is just so eagerly awaited by all for its proven “fringe benefits” coming from suddenly benevolent public office-seekers.

And so, who are these spoilers who now want to deprive people of their much-anticipated bagful of goodies or oodles of money, mostly ubes (violet) delivered right at their doorstep or simply handed over on a casual meeting – even without their asking? Postpone the elections, would they?

There’d be hell to pay.

Christmas has long been lost among the suffering masses – and now, the bread-and-butter of their existence– election time — too? Cruel. Wicked. 

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