Filipinos find a way to celebrate Christmas amid coronavirus quarantine

Policemen at the area where Catholic devotees attend a Christmas eve mass maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. (AFP)

• Philippines has the world’s longest holiday season, starts countdown in September

MANILA: Filipinos are expected to find new ways of celebrating Christmas due to a disruption in festivities brought by coronavirus-related restrictions.
The Philippines’ capital region, Metro Manila, will remain under general community quarantine until the end of the year. While decorations are up, Christmas parties and large family gatherings are not allowed in the country which has the world’s longest holiday season and normally starts the Christmas countdown
in September.
“Like the commercial of a popular bank in the Philippines, Filipinos will still find ways to celebrate Christmas,” RJ Fernandez, a government worker, told Arab News
on Thursday.
“It will be a somber and guarded atmosphere, but the occasion goes on, albeit in a more muted manner,” he said, adding that to still feel the holiday spirit he had hung a big Christmas lantern on his doorway.
While people have been seen at malls doing their Christmas shopping, there are no crowds as usual. Children are absent as they are not allowed to step outside their homes. Robert Cua, a Filipino-Chinese businessman, said that this year it will only be a simple family Christmas celebration, not the usual big clan gathering they normally have during this time of year.
Marina Agustin, a retired public affairs officer, said she will spend Christmas with only her siblings and their children.
“Relatives, who come to also visit my mother, will not be around this year. We are also not going to the traditional midnight mass, I will just watch it online. As for the food, we are not doing a potluck this Christmas. We will just prepare some food for our Nochebuena,” she said.
As for gifts, Agustin said that only children and their household staff will receive presents as the pandemic had also hit Christmas budgets.
Fely Baltazar, an accountant, said she and her relatives have missed gathering for breakfasts after dawn masses in the lead up to Christmas Eve, which has been a tradition in their family. “But we are still grateful to have our family around, and hopeful that this pandemic will end soon,” she said.
Others interviewed by Arab News said there will be less food on their tables for the night of Christmas Eve, but what is important is that they will be celebrating it with their loved ones.
But not everyone will be home.
Evhan Mañalac, who works at a US military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, told Arab News that due to coronavirus travel restrictions this is the first time she is not able to be in the Philippines for Christmas to spend the holiday with her children.
“We will just be joining them virtually to celebrate Christmas. At least we have technology,” she said.
Many of those in the UK will also not be able to return home as on Wednesday the Philippines imposed a ban on flights from Britain until Dec. 31 due to the perceived threat from a new coronavirus strain first detected in the country.