Luisa Igloria • Francis Macansantos • Kristian Cordero
Victor Peñaranda • Marne Kilates
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http://marnescriptsmain.blogspot.comChristmas Themes & Unseasonable Notions
(excerpt)
Winter in the Diaspora, and the little town of Bethlehem, and Simbang Gabi replicated in barrio visitas, subdivision chapels, metropolitan cathedrals, and minor basilicas in the Philippines. Christmas is just a global locally at home: ancient and new, biblical and folksy, and clad in the gleaming aluminum and frippery of shopping malls, and murmuring with the undercurrents of the global economic troubles. The old beloved theme of the parol lighted in the both the shanty and the mansion still obtains and both the well heeled and the unshod (wearing only fake Havaiana flip-flops) still tread dizzily the granite-tile floors of Rockwell, Greenbelt, or SM (shopping malls in the Philippines) ogling the latest models of Nokias or iPhones. Both buy imported fruits at the stalls, and though both may have a hankering for roasted castañas (the chestnuts of Nat King Cole), one may not know the difference between Ponkan and tangerines and either may go home to a Noche Buena of turkey or Pato hamon (a brand, now traditional, of salted Chinese ham). The seaman and the Balikbayan still go straight to the piping-hot bibingka and puto-bumbong, the and child who was lulled by Bing Crosby and sleigh bells on phonograph records, cassettes, or CD can’t think of Christmas without Santa Claus, grapes, and apples. It’s the sentimental time of the year and Filipinos maximize the season by playing carols starting September, and the Coca-Colas and the Sonys won’t be left behind (in sales) by putting out the Christmas advertising campaigns no sooner. And the buying goes on, despite Wall Street and Chrysler and GM falling under at the other end of the globe, unless the immigrant Kuya, the Ate , or Tita were newly redundanced or separated from AIG or Lehman...
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