Punchline
The longest Christmas holiday
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
The unprecedented 11-day straight No-Work Christmas holiday was definitely both good news and bad news to a lot of people!
It was good news for salaried regular employees! They got their extra vacation-paid leaves without lifting their fingers. It was good news for families that planned reunions over the holidays. They were assured of high attendance.
It was bad news for the casual employees. They were left high and dry. No 13th month, no daily wage for 6 days! It was bad news for businessmen who were promised delivery of stocks and supplies. Most had to be postponed.
It was good news for economies in the countryside. The moneyed-Metro Manilans went on a spending spree, sampling every promdi delicacy. It was good news for politicians. It gave them valid excuse to take earlier flights out and outsmart their constituents who knock on their gates for cash gifts.
It was bad news for the people who thought they could retrieve or submit documents from government offices. Woe to the traveler who had to cancel flight plans because his passport or visa could not be released. It was bad news for the atm cardholder who had to go on a daily search journey for ‘online’ atm machines.
It was good news for those who managed to save for the holiday; bad news for those who had nothing.
Bottomline, the Arroyo administration staved off another potentially explosive anti-government uprising. Now there’s the real good news! Why shouldn’t it be? That was what the 11-day holiday was really all about!
I am just disappointed that they didn’t bother to submit the long holiday as a possible entry to the Guinness World Records. Shucks.
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SANTA SPINES PARTY FOR THE MEDIA. The governor’s office hosted a Christmas party for local media. I heard it was a quite a smashing party. The media troopers partied all night long with Santa Spines.
But wait. I thought there was one minor thing that didn’t quite add up in the news that came out of it. Reports claimed there were more than 350 ‘practitioners’ in that party! Golly gosh! 350!
Literally, that meant there were 350 ‘watchdogs’ out there who pounded the Capitol grounds 24/7 for a chance to catch Guv Spines’ sound bites each week. Compare that to the media attention that President Gloria gets. I surmise Malacanang is covered by no more than 50 reporters.
Eat your heart out, Ate Glo! Kuya Spines is here!
But seriously, I never realized that work in community media has already attracted that many to its fold! Most community papers only publish 4 pages of news, most of which are lifted from press releases (still others lift column items and news from our pages, yes, including our mistakes!). Local radio and TV stations maintain no more than an hour of local news reports daily. So assuming there are now 30 established media outfits (which we doubt), what publication or station would employ more than 10 reporters?
Even as I concede that there could be at least 2 reporters and a set of 5 columnists and commentators for each outfit that should make for a generous estimate of 210 legit practitioners only. Now I wonder who and what the 140 others represented in that party. Media Noche? Jueteng lords?
But what the heck, Santa Spines was feeling plain generous that night, and the occasion provided him the chance to plead for fairness in news coverage. To prove his sincerity, I am told he gifted only a select few from the 350 attendees with P1000 cash each slipped inside Christmas cards! That was smart Santa Spines but not quite a fair gesture since everyone was presumed to be legit that evening in the spirit of Christmas!
Way to go Santa Spines! You can expect 700 ‘mediamen’ in your next Christmas party!
