Christmas in Manila 2024

It was a bad Christmas because of this one thing that people have grown tired of hearing. There is almost no end to it. Christmas, like many other nice things, has been ruined by the embarrassing reason that there were too many of the wrong vehicles in the wrong place, causing an excess of heavy traffic. The government (the ruling political class, especially) who has the power to solve this is too incompetent. Shouting at a talentless basketball player so he can make more points, get more rebounds, or play better defense is useless. Just so, it is a waste of time to nag a politician to do well when, in fact, he does not have the competence to do better. This problem that has ruined Manila will stay. Probably, Christmas 2025 in Manila will be just as chaotic and irritating. But it will be wiser to wait and see. Many things can happen before the next birthday of Baby Jesus. 

In fact, Christmas 2024 in Manila could have been worse. The blessing in disguise—you see, Manila is a place built with blessings in disguise—is that Manila, in all its badness, is incapable of being thoroughly evil. What does this mean? Manila is mediocre. It cannot and won’t be great. Just so, its same mediocrity keeps it from being completely trash. While it ruins Christmas, like many other things, it cannot ruin it totally. 

Let me use as an example this one huge destroyer of the Christmas spirit: Manila’s consumerism. Being a cosmopolitan capital city, Manila is bound to be consumerist. And so last Christmas, it was hell to go to shopping malls or even get out of the house, because everyone was rushing somewhere, overloading and overheating the city that is both full of gift wrapper trash and fairy lights. But because there was too much of these debilitating, immobilizing excesses, Manila could not be more consumerist. People wanted to buy more, but they couldn’t. They were literally trapped in the rush, and so instead of successfully burning their cash in SM, they were forced to sulk and pay for expensive taxi fares home. Economists would say there was too much opportunity cost, but one might suggest—a priest or some philosopher of simplicity—that, in fact, above all the Christmas craze looms the work of an invisible force that stops a person from being materialistic. Manila wants to be materialistic, and it finds ways to do so, but it just can’t do it in full force because its mediocrity immediately kicks in. 

What saves Manila is its habit of falling short. Manila loves doing it. It falls short in beauty, in economic development, in virtue, in sophistication, etc. Likewise, it falls short in being cruel, losing, decaying, and destructive. Manila is just there, living, and being miserable, but not too miserable, because it cannot succeed even in making life the hardest. It insists on being mid. The city has a fear of being backward while also being scared of being too advanced. 

So, Christmas 2024, although hardly good, cannot be all that bad. The best description is that it was meh. Hopefully, it goes beyond meh. And to be better next time, Manila needs to do what, I am sure, a lot of people will have opinions about and already know. Can this be done, though? Why not? Perhaps Manila’s next Christmas wish could be to have a better Christmas—more convenient, less annoying, more peaceful, less disorganized, less traffic, and more overt blessings to go along with those that are in silent disguise.