Gimme a break!

I’ve been writing less and less frequently lately, and part of it’s because of President Gloria Arroyo’s insistence on long weekends. Believe me, it’s hard to meet writing deadlines when you’re forced to go out of town every weekend to boost tourism. True, such enforced tourism theoretically should result in more material for a columnist. But here’s the rub: How can you find time to write (or do your job) if the government wants you to take a break all the time?

I’ve been trying to find a good answer to that question from the government, but all the people who might be helpful in this matter have been away, observing long weekends. First there was Holy Week, then "Heroism Day" (Araw ng Kagitingan, formerly Bataan Day, and not to be confused with National Heroes Day, which is on August 25). Now we hear Gloria wants Labor Day – and every other holiday that crops up – moved to Mondays, to encourage more people to escape from Manila.

Now, most people don’t need an incentive to escape from Manila, so I’m wondering why the sudden emphasis on long weekends. Was the government actually becoming too efficient? Were titles, permits, legal cases and paperwork becoming so up-to-date that there was nothing left to do but shoot off to the provinces for three days a week? Was the GNP and GDP so sky-high that someone in Malacañang decided, "Whoa, better cut back on all this productivity... Everybody take a break!"

No, by all accounts the long weekend strategy was cooked up by former Subic Bay chieftain Dick Gordon as a way to perk up the economy during the sluggish summer months. And, to be fair, it seems to be working. Fewer cars clog the roadways on weekends. More people flock to the malls, though since school’s in recess, it’s hard to attribute this solely to long weekends. And more people are presumably out in the provinces, boosting tourism. One wonders how people earn enough money to flock to the provinces, when they only work four or five days a week.

(I’ve also wondered: What do the people in the provinces do during the long weekends? Besides service out-of-towners, that is? Do they flock in the opposite direction to Manila?)

On the downside for the country, less actual work appears to getting done. Don’t believe it? Just try getting something accomplished over the phone on a Monday morning. I’ve actually come to dread Mondays, because I know that either most places will be closed, mistakenly believing it to be a holiday, or because the person you desperately need to speak with – the only person in the office with the brain capacity to handle your niggling little problem – is "out" on Monday. Presumably in the provinces, boosting tourism.

It’s been like this since early March, and it’s become nearly impossible to finalize anything that involves government paperwork. Scheduling a nest of holidays around the tax deadline of April 15 is another mistake, like putting hidden landmines on the pathway to productivity. Oh, the government says its workers now put in 10-hour days, to compensate for the long weekends. But since everyone else is scrambling to get their paperwork processed during the same four days a week the government is operational... well, you can see the problem.

Look at it another way. Here in the Philippines, people generally put in a six-day work week. They don’t like doing this, but it at least makes it convenient for the Catholic Church to schedule Sunday as a "day of rest." So if things are sluggish and inefficient with a six-day-week, how can they possibly hum along with a four-day week? It just doesn’t add up.

I seem to recall that President Joseph Estrada also had a fondness for long weekends, but after all, he had an excuse. President Gloria, on the other hand, is supposed to be a dedicated workaholic. Looking at the 2002 calendar, I count 18 holidays, some of them working, most of them non-working, and this doesn’t even include President Gloria’s unofficial observance of Ramadan. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly fine to observe this month-long period of Muslim fasting, but you might want to tack on Rosh Hoshana while you’re at it, just to make everybody happy. And who exactly came up with "Grandparents’ Day" (Sept. 8)?

Now, just for the sake of argument, let’s say President Gloria decides that every single national holiday should be moved to a Monday, in order to force everybody out of town for the weekend. At 18 holidays and 52 weeks per year, that means everyone in the country would soon be entitled to a three-day weekend every third week. Wow, I don’t know how long Filipinos can put up with such a grueling work pace!

I don’t know. To me, long weekends should be a kind of reward for success. I’m told this whole weekend-break strategy is based on the European working model. Arguably, time off might be a good thing in Europe, where governments are highly efficient and people are generally paid too much, enjoy three-month vacations and extensive health benefits. But how does the long weekend fit in an Asian setting where countries have to stay lean and competitive just to survive? Remember: The last country that tried clinging to the European model of luxury and extensive holidays was Argentina – and it went bankrupt.

So don’t be surprised if I have less and less to say in my column these days. It’s hard to get anything done when the government officially discourages you from working. But in all honesty, I look around me and see there is still much work that needs to be done. The long weekend phenomenon begs the question: Do we really deserve all this time off?

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