Amid Soaring Inflation, Filipinos Celebrate Upcoming Christmas With Mixed Feelings

• Published date: 23 December 2022
• Publication title: ASEAN Tribune

23 December 2022 (NAM NEWS NETWORK) MANILA, Dec 23 (NNN-PNA) - As early as Oct, Ellen Reyes booked a resort villa in Laguna province, south of the Philippine capital and famous for hot-spring bathhouses, planning to spend Christmas eve there, with her whole family. She will have to pay 26,000 pesos (roughly 470 U.S. dollars) for an overnight stay.

Marielle Catbagan and her friends of over 30 years, also got together early this month to enjoy native Filipino food, and sip Italian fine wine in a friend's house, their favorite hangout place since the late 1980s.

Christmas is marked by big celebrations in the Philippines, where most of its population professes the Catholic faith. It is the time when Filipino families and friends gather for yearly reunions, weddings, and endless parties. They celebrate Christmas for four months, starting in Sept and ending in Jan.

Shopping malls, decked with Christmas trimmings and blinking lights, and playing Christmas carols, to bring festivity to mall-goers, now operate at full capacity as COVID-19 infections and hospitalisation become manageable.

Filipinos broke so many festive Christmas...