Philippine Congress Wants More Holidays

Don’t get me wrong, the more holidays the Philippines has, the more money Baguio City makes because we always get a healthy volume of tourists the minute a long weekend is announced. But recent proposed legislation caught my eye and I cannot say I agree with it.

A recent news item about Congress eyeing seven (7) more holidays, on top of the 10 legal holidays already included in the Labor Code of the Philippines plus the numerous special holidays declared by the President of the Philippines whenever she feels like declaring the same.

Add to this the times the Filipino does not work such as 52 days off in a year, plus a birthday leave, plus at least 5 days service incentive leave (my company gives 15 days paid vacation leaves), plus months of maternity leaves for female employees and paternity leaves for males.

Some companies have a 5-day work week, just like the largest employer in the Philippines — the government — where employees already have 104 days off, which is huge, considering we only have 365 days in a year.

All these non-working days already cause the Filipino to work less, and produce less. As it is we are already called the “Sick Man of Asia.” Do we want to add another name “The Lazy Man of Asia?”

The extra non-working holidays being sought are:

• February 4 – Philippine-American War Heroes Day
• (movable date) – Chinese New Year’s Day
• March 18 – Bangsa-moro Day
• March 22 – Emilio Aguinaldo Day
• June 19 – Jose Rizal Day
• Sept. 1 – Filipino Family Day
• Nov. 20 – Children’s Day

The 10 Legal Holidays of the Philippines are:

• January 1 – New Year’s Day
• March or April (movable) – Good Friday
• April 9 – Araw ng Kagitingan
• May 1 – Labor Day
• June 12 – Independence Day
• Last Sunday of August – National Heroes Day
• November 1 – All Saints Day
• November 30 – Bonifacio Day
• December 25 – Christmas Day
• December 30 – Rizal Day

The days that are generally marked as Special Holidays are:

• Feb 25 – commemorating the EDSA Revolution
• (movable date) – Maundy Thursday
• (movable date, based on Islamic Calendar) Eid’l Fitr or the start of Ramadan
• November 2 – All Souls Day
• December 24 – Christmas Eve
• December 31 – New Year’s Eve

And in the Philippine setting where a lot of folks are daily paid, this means no work, no pay. This means, more special holidays, earn less.

One can argue that an employee is paid the equivalent of a day’s wages if one does not go to work on a legal holiday and gets paid double if he does. So now with the seven extra legal holidays proposed, businesses who open 7 days a week, like service-related establishments, or factories meeting a deadline, will have a 70% increase in their total legal holiday pay expenses?

And what does that say about this country? That we are indeed the nation of “Juan Tamad?”

And, as the news report states considering our “Congressmen only work 3 times a week and go on month-long vacations at least five times a year,” these people want to legislate an additional seven holidays for workers.

Here’s what gets me shaking my head in exasperation:

1. If we really have any love for the Filipino family, then maybe it should not be the government policy to export labor the way we do by sending the poor OFWs to be slaves in other countries.

2. And why should there be a Children’s Day and not an Adult’s Day.

3. Plus we already commemorate the death of Rizal, so now we should commemorate his birth?

4. Plus who is Emilio Aguinaldo? Hahaha — kidding! Seriously now, maybe, to be fair to all heroes of this country, as we may have more of them in the future, we should just remember them all during the already created legal holiday called National Heroes Day in August. So if the reason for having an Aguinaldo Day is because Andres Bonifacio already has one, then I propose we scrap the Bonifacio Day instead.

5. I know we celebrate Chinese New Year, but we also celebrate Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and we do these by dining out, not going off on vacation, so let’s stop this nonsense, ok?

6. If we were to have so many Muslim holidays, religious or not, then Iglesia ni Kristo may start insisting that the Philippines celebrate January 2 as a legal holiday also, and El Shaddai Mike Velarde’s birthday, and the Roman Catholics all the saints’ birthdays.

7. Another peeve, by the way is how so many holidays cause banks and other financial institutions to close, thus interrupting so many financial transactions. It is bad enough that, at this day and age of computerized banking, it takes three days for out-of-town checks to clear, which is such a disadvantage to provinces, but to have to wait extra days because of long weekends and holidays basically adds to an unhealthy business climate.

And how can we expect folks to earn enough money to take holidays if we keep stopping them from working? Or if we decrease our productivity via constant work stoppages? Honestly, we should just have one long Christmas vacation. The Philippines can go on a consecutive 10-day holiday instead — from Dec 23-January 1 and work for the rest of the year straight, except for days off.

And honestly, why don’t we just scrap Congress where folks are underworked and overpaid, where we manage to elect folk like the proponents of this foolish legislation to represent us?

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