GMA set to declare week-long Lenten break

President Arroyo intends to issue a new proclamation declaring a long period of non-working days on "optional basis" for both government and private offices this coming Holy Week.

"I think the holiday economics really work. I think I would like that again for Holy Week," the President told Palace reporters yesterday about her plans to reprise the long Christmas and New Year’s "holiday economics" policy of her administration for this Lenten week.

"Remember the three days sandwiched between Christmas and New Year — it was optional for (private) firms to have work or not to have work," she said.

The same long holiday for Holy Week will be in effect "because it really worked on All Saints’ Day and Christmas." It was during these holidays when she first tested this scheme as her administration’s strategy to promote domestic tourism, the idea being that if families are given long days of vacation, they will likely plan to travel.

As mulled by the President, the "holiday economics" can start Maundy Monday, March 25, to culminate on Easter Sunday, March 31.

As for her own vacation plans for Holy Week, Mrs. Arroyo said she hadn’t made up her mind yet. A previous plan was to go to the tourist island of Phuket, Thailand to coincide with her state visit there.

But Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said the President decided to postpone her state visit to Thailand to May this year when she goes on "one swing" state visits to Japan and South Korea.

Mrs. Arroyo said she would still have to confer with the members of the First Family regarding their Holy Week holiday plans.

"When it’s vacation, I usually ask my family to decide. But I’m only second guessing, we might go to Legazpi or Baguio," she told Palace reporters.

The President credited anew her Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon for the "holiday economics" scheme that her administration has implemented to support the local tourism industry.

The industry has suffered serious setbacks following the series of kidnap-for-ransom incidents that victimized foreign nationals in the country, including the guests of the Dos Palmas beach resort in Palawan which was raided last year by the Abu Sayyaf.