I say that because the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has finally—and I emphasize finally—addressed the issue of Filipinos taking time off from work.
“We have too many holidays…” the group’s president, Enunina Mangio, said last month. “We have to reduce its negative impacts on the productivity of our workforce and state of the economy.”
Almost immediately, several observers raised objections, including the editorial board of The Manila Times. Reducing the number of paid workers’ holidays, the paper declared on Aug. 17th, “is a non sequitur and should be dismissed.”
The editorial compared the number of official Philippine holidays—21, including 12 regular holidays plus nine special nonworking days—to that of other Southeast Asian nations: Malaysia’s at 22, Indonesia’s at 19, Thailand’s at 18, Cambodia’s at 16, Singapore’s at 10, Laos’ at eight, and Vietnam’s at six.
“The number of annual holidays in the Philippines,” the editorial concluded, “is…comparable to other countries in the region.”
OK, I’m probably about to step into a pile of dog doo here or, more likely, a puddle of indeterminate depth, but I honestly can’t agree.
First, 21 days off (plus local holidays, fiestas, and natural disasters) is well above the regional average of 15. Heck, workers in the US get only 11 paid federal holidays each year.
More to-the-point, though, Philippine culture routinely augments those days by declining to prioritize going to work. Not that such proclivities are entirely bad. From a consumer’s perspective, though, they can be devastating.
I first realized that back in 2019 during the construction of our house in Surigao City. Monday would arrive (or, for that matter, any day of the week) and instead of the soothing sounds of hammers crunching nails, saws biting wood, and the indecipherable yet reassuring repartee of construction workers embarking on a day of labor, an eerie silence would prevail.
Later, we’d hear their excuses; Sunday was the barangay’s fiesta and they’d had too much to drink, or mama was lonely and needed company, or a cousin had arrived from Cebu for a visit. All of which was fine, but happened so often that, instead of the promised two years, our house got completed in five.
On one particularly dreary and silent morning, we summoned the foreman to explain. “Well,” he said, “it’s like this. In the Philippines, if you have a full sack of rice, you stay home. Only when your sack is empty do you go to work.”
Apparently, we concluded, we’d been keeping their sacks way too full.
Seriously, though, I was shocked by his analysis. Because in the US, Filipinos have the well-deserved reputation of being the most conscientious workers money can buy. In that corner of the world, in fact, the problem isn’t getting them to come to work but persuading them to stay away.
At the time, I rationalized the more laid-back standards on the home front as the product of a culture that valued life over work. “Many Americans,” I wrote, “would argue that their Puritan work ethic is how the USA has provided the highest living standard for the greatest number of people in the history of the world while the Philippines is still, well, a developing country.”
But that’s not all bad, I hastened to add. “While surveys consistently rank Filipinos among the world’s happiest and friendliest people, Americans are better known for their high levels of stress and depression, disintegrating families, addiction to work, alienation from society and each other, mass violence, annoying outspokenness and impatient, demanding personalities.”
I still believe all that to be true. In the interim, however, I’ve come to believe something else as well; if the Philippines truly wants to progress economically, its citizens must put their noses to the proverbial grindstone.
Encouraging them to spend a few more days doing that each year, I believe, certainly wouldn’t hurt.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and radio broadcaster with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
