Pasko na! Kampanya na!

The first sign of Christmas in my apartment is a small white parol knitted by the mothers at Knitting Expedition in Uhaji, Ifugao. I’ve decided to Pasko-ize my place in stages this year; after that little parol maybe I’ll work on a centerpiece for my dining table this weekend. Slow by slow (dahan-dahan), as they say.

When I was a kid a real pine tree would take pride of place in the sala by early December (which, by today’s timeline, is really late; these last few years I put up the decorations right after All Saints’ Day). The tree exuded a wonderful pine scent and would shed needles that had to be swept up every morning. We had “snow” from a can sprayed on the branches. When we moved out of the old house in the family compound on San Rafael street we stopped having a live tree – I’m not sure why, maybe because by then we were no longer little kiddies awed by the office truck bringing in a real tree. In the house on Piña street we had a tall plastic tree – until one night it came crashing down into a tangled mess of branches and strings of lights, the ornaments smashed to smithereens. Since then we’ve not had a tree.

Since moving to a condo unit two decades ago the decorations have had to be scaled down. I bought a 12-inch tree made of coconut branches painted gold at a Negros trade fair. A friend gifted me one Christmas with a 24-inch gold-hued tree, which is still around but which I am repurposing this year into other forms of decoration.

Which brought me, my helpers and our dog Filemon Jr. to the Christmas store, Color It Christmas, down the street one not-so-rainy day a couple of weeks ago. It was originally the Tamilee store, but Tami Leung, the entrepreneur with the magic Christmas touch who founded Tamilee Industries 37 years ago, retired earlier this year. However, the store still exudes an over-the-top holiday mood with its fully-loaded Christmas trees and wall and table decor, certainly enough to make one start celebrating the happiest time of the year.

Christmas is big business, and not just here in the Philippines which prides itself – justifiably – as having the longest Christmas celebration in the world. The global Christmas decor industry was worth $5.52 billion in 2021, estimated to grow at 3.5 percent per year.

Stores, malls, hotels, parks and even private houses pull out all the stops in terms of decorations. Snowy villages complete with blinking lights and moving parts, giant lanterns that change patterns in time with the music, façades of stores and houses crammed with everything associated with the season – angels, reindeer, Santas, creches, candy canes… Christmas hereabouts presents a dizzying visual overload.

But my favorite decor is still the parol, the simple Christmas star that hangs in the window or at the door, a beacon of light that says “Home!” Many years ago, our founding publisher Max Soliven wrote an article, “Juan dela Cruz hangs a star,” that captures what the parol symbolizes – light in the dark, hope amidst despair and the wish of every Pinoy for a brighter future.

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Not only do we have the longest Christmas season, it seems like we have the longest campaign season as well. Although the official campaign period only starts on Feb. 11, 2025 for national positions (90 days for senators and party-lists) and March 28, 2025 for local positions (45 days for governors, mayors, etc.), we are this early already being subjected to election-related noise and pollution.

Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling in 2007, all that is not considered premature campaigning. The esteemed former associate justice Antonio Carpio – the staunch defender of our rights in the West Philippine Sea – wrote the decision in a 2007 case against the Comelec, and again in another case in 2009, that a person can be liable for election offense only upon start of the official campaign period, since before that he is not a candidate and therefore there is no election offense to be charged with. These decisions led to amendment of the Omnibus Election Code, and the new RA 9369 states that a person “shall only be considered as a candidate at the start of the campaign period for which he filed his certificate of candidacy.” So, between the filing of COCs – which was on Oct. 1 to 8 this year for next year’s election – and the official start of the campaign period, what is he? Candidate-to-be, wannabe-candidate, candidate-in-limbo or none/all of the above?

Even before the -ber months rolled around and way before the filing of COCs, one wannabe-candidate started putting up his posters. Along the route I traverse going to and from work, I see his face, complete with orange-tinted glasses (Simon Cowell says he wears them because he gets migraines; what’s this guy’s excuse?), every few meters, almost at every turn. Lately he has been joined by other wannabes, all of them running for senator, with posters on posts and fences (with permission of the house owner? I wonder), one even on the electronic billboard on EDSA. Since I’m driving I don’t bother to read what’s on the posters; I just see their mugs smiling at me. I try to ignore them, but the posters are so in-your-face they’re nearly impossible to ignore, which is probably the intention. But are these wannabes getting my vote? What do you think?