Independence Day

This is not a happy post.

Because I am mad.

No, I take that back. If you've read my previous entries, you've already known that I'm mad.

But I'm not that kind of "mad". I'm angry! Yes, that's the word. ANGRY!

Angry that June 11 is a non-working holiday.

Angry even if, on that day, I can drive to MOA my Mitsubishi Lancer with plate number TDX322.

Angry even if I can go to Anilao on Saturday, get back home on Sunday, and still have an extra day to rest before going to work.

And why am I angry? I'll tell you.

Why does the government declare a day as non-working holiday? What's the purpose for daily wage-earners not getting their salary for the day? I thought a non-working holiday is declared to celebrate, or commemorate, a certain event. It is a time to pause and reflect, and give thanks that such an event occurred in our history.

Next week, we will celebrate our most joyous historical event, the Independence Day. But, unfortunately, June 12 falls on a Tuesday. So, our president declares June 11 as a special non-working holiday, while June 12 as a regular working day.

The intention is so we can have a long week-end, and people will be enticed to go to the beaches, to the resorts, or to the malls in order to spend money and spur the economy. Therefore, it seems it is the hard cash that is more important on this day rather than being thankful that we are an independent nation.

And this makes me angry.

What's the fuss, anyway? We do that all the time, celebrating our birthday on the nearest Sunday if it falls on a weekday. And we do that beginning with our first birthday, our second, our third, and so on and so forth, until we take for granted our birthday and don't celebrate it anymore.

When was that, when the president declared May 3, a Friday, as a special non-working holiday, but May 1 was a regular working day? The labor unions complained. For why declare a non-working holiday other than the day when the event should be celebrated? The president retracted her order, and so we have a non-working holiday on Labor Day, regardless on what day of the week it falls.

And this makes me more angry.

It seems nobody cares that the holiday is declared not on the day on which it is supposed to be celebrated. That people are now looking forward to June because of an additional holiday, and not because we will celebrate our Independence Day.

Ok, ok. So, I, too, am guilty. I, too, look forward to this extra non-working day in June. And I never go to Luneta to watch the parade.

Which makes me angry at myself.

But we tried. Ever since the country celebrated its Centennial, my family tried to make it a point to, at least, place a flag in front of our house. Sadly, we're not doing it this year; my daughter's Christmas lantern is still hanging out there.

I also look forward to this day because most FM radio stations play only Filipino songs throughout the day. Even 98.7 DzFE, the Master's Touch, play the Kundimans and classical music composed by Filipinos. However, for the past several years, even this is slowly disappearing, with very few stations playing all OPM even just for an hour.

It is quite ironic, for it was President Diosdado Macapagal, the present president's father, who moved the date for the celebration of Independence Day from July 4 to June 12. Well, I guess it runs in the family. PGMA is, once more, moving the date of our Indepedence Day, just like what her father did.

Or, perhaps, she knows a lot more than I do. With the votes not being counted properly in the last elections, with 30% of the population at the poverty level, with billions of dollars owed by the Philippine Government to different banks, thus each one of us, even the newly-born, already owes thousands of pesos to these banks, with millions of Filipinos working abroad as domestic helpers, nurses, entertainers, blue-collared workers, and the government depending so much on the dollars remitted by them, the president may have a point in regarding lightly our Independence Day. Perhaps, she is right. We may not really be independent after all.