Season's Gripings: Impromptu Vacations Vex Filipinos

 Manila Extends Tradition of Last-Minute Long Weekends, but President and Businesses Ask If 'Holiday Economics' Pencils Out

By JAMES HOOKWAY

 ORIGINAL POST SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704278404576037631456687352.html

 

MANILA—With less than two weeks left before Christmas this year, the Philippine government unveiled a holiday gift to its people: Friday would be day off to mark Christmas Eve, and a second public holiday, in honor of a national martyr, would be observed on Monday, Dec. 27.
The result was a windfall four-day weekend. But instead of invoking cheer, such surprises are increasingly being met with grumbles from Philippine business leaders, its president and even some of its heavily vacationed workers.

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Shoppers lined up for Christmas hams in Manila's Quiapo district last weekend, shortly after the government announced a long year-end weekend. 

The Dec. 12 holiday shuffle was part of a distinctly Philippine way of handing out and scheduling days off—offering many official vacation days, and often rearranging them at the last minute to fall on the nearest Friday or Monday.

The country's leaders have hoped the long weekends will encourage citizens to shop and travel, boosting retail sales and the local tourism industry. Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo embraced the strategy, dubbed "holiday economics," and was often photographed on long weekends kitted out in a wetsuit for some surfing, or visiting her home province, north of Manila.
But ever since this former Spanish and American colony introduced the notion a decade ago, businesses have struggled to adapt. Now a growing number of people here are pushing back.
One of the problems is the sheer number of public holidays here: 21 in 2010, compared with 11 in Singapore and nine in Vietnam. (The U.S. has 11 federal holidays but doesn't require private companies to give paid time off.) The number of days off undercuts the Philippine government's publicity campaigns about its economy being "open for business." Current President Benigno Aquino III is preparing to play Scrooge by cutting the number of holidays in 2011 by five, to 16.
What's more, few people seem to know when the holidays will be called until a few weeks or even days beforehand. This month's announcements of the precise days off around Christmas in the Philippines, Asia's only predominantly Christian country, threw many companies' business plans into chaos.
"Because the banks are closed, I have to send off messengers to collect payment from clients," says Roger Chua, president of online business services outfit Web Philippines Inc. "And as soon as a holiday is announced, the mindset of my staff changes immediately. They're in a 'no-work' mode already."
This December, for instance, Jose Rizal Day, which commemorates an author executed by Spanish troops, is being bumped forward from Dec. 30 to create a long Christmas weekend. Christmas Eve, which isn't always a holiday in the Philippines, was also declared a day off. Last year, Mrs. Arroyo declared a holiday to mark the anniversary of a Philippines-based Church group, Iglesia Ni Cristo, or Church of Christ, and ordered another day off to mark its founder's passing.
Even as other countries adopt versions of holiday economics—China has been doing something similar for years, and Thailand next year is rearranging some holidays in a similar bid perk up local spending— some economists contend the whole theory might not even work, at least not in the Philippines.

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Damaris Yarcias, a consultant with the Asian Development Bank in Manila, says holiday economics encourages businesses, especially manufacturers, to stop production to avoid the overtime they would pay workers to come in on holidays. 

This leads to less employment and less cash circulating through the economy. "The loss in disposable income undermines any potential positive effect of longer holidays on the economy," she says.

The tourism industry in the Philippines accounts for 8% of total gross domestic product, compared with nearly double that in nearby Thailand, so shuffling and adding holidays to benefit the travel industry would have a relatively slight knock-on effect on the broader economy.
Many Filipino workers don't earn enough to go off on lavish jaunts around the country anyway. The per capita income here averages under $2,000 a year. Even those with solid professional jobs struggle to make ends meet, and don't necessarily get paid on national holidays.
David Ramos, a 26-year-old graphic artist, says the cellular phone network where he works employs him on a contract, so if he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid. "I'm on the disadvantaged side of all this," he says.
"Most of the time I stay at home to catch up on sleep," says Gail Franco, a government employee. "Only occasionally do I go out of town."



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