Davaoeños, like most Filipinos, are now feeling the pinch of the high cost of commodities. Many of them can’t afford to celebrate Christmas the way they used to.

By Germelina Lacorte
davaotoday.com

DAVAO CITY – “The times are so hard, we hardly sell anything,” two fruit vendors cried in unison when asked about their sales this week just a few hours before dusk. "We’ve been here since morning begging customers to buy but look at what we’ve got," one of the vendors, Jocelyn Salermo, said, pointing to her box of unsold apples she sells for 10 pesos a piece. "Our box of apples was hardly touched at all." They had been selling in front of Uyanguren’s NCCC department store, famous in Davao for its cheap buys.

Upstairs, cheap curtains are spilling over the rummage bin but few are

touching them. "Most of the items being sold are T-shirts," said Clowelyn Solarte, an NCCC sales assistant. "Customers are hardly touching the pants at all." Prices of a small Christmas tree had already gone down to as low as 300 pesos from as much as 500 pesos to 700 pesos the previous year but only a few ventured to buy them.

Although people crowd around big signs announcing as much as 50 percent discounts in prices, new items have actually grown more expensive, said Marilou Dulla, a cashier. "Unlike in 2002, when we hardly had any lunch break because of the buying crowd, now, prices are increasing and few people are buying," she said.

New arrivals of branded Polo shirts, for instance, are now selling at 599 pesos from only 479 pesos a month ago, said Jo, an NCCC sales representative for Polo, the shirt brand. "We just post a markdown to dispose of the old ones, but actually, we’re increasing prices," she explained. "We’re getting stocks from Manila. Prices are getting higher and life is getting more difficult here in the province nowadays."

Along the Uyanguren sidewalks, Maria Nenita Sollano, 46, would count her blessings rather than gripe over the things that she’s missing for Christmas. "As long as we have rice on the table, I can send the children to school, I can buy their basic needs, I can let go of all the rest," said Sollano, a mother of 13 children, seven of whom are still staying with her, including a four-month-old grandchild.

She did not even dare to bare the things she wanted most. Her noche buena would consist of some pancit and bihon, a piece of lechon, because she could not afford to buy a whole one. "I still had to buy a sack of rice and save for the children’s school needs at the beginning of next year," she said.

She expected very few people to buy her pomelos along the sidewalks immediately after the holidays. "Only after a week or so, sales will begin to pick up again so we have to prepare while the sales are low," she said. For gifts, she said the bowls and saucers and spoons and wall clock she received during their Christmas party were enough to delight her. "I never think of anything I don’t have," she said. "Through the years, I’ve become used to it."

Just a few blocks away, another vendor Angela Ladja, 48, wanted to have enough money to fill her small stall with lots of saleable cell phone jackets and knick knacks. But sales among office workers has not been good because of the crisis. She just couldn’t get enough capital, she explained.

"Before, we used to have three kinds of cheese inside our refrigerator for Christmas, but now, I’m lucky to see one," said Merly Cruz, regional director of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). "Times are getting very difficult and people are holding on to their money. Even impulsive buyers like me are starting to be cautious about the things that they buy," she told reporters recently.

She refused to pin the blame on the expanded value-added tax but admits that the series of oil price increases this year alone have kept the prices of goods and commodities up, eroding what purchasing power remained of the peso. With wage levels unchanged, this contributes to the dismal outlook of the economy, as people try their best to cope with the hard times by holding on to their money, she said.

Even City Hall, which has been quite generous in its past Christmas celebrations, has been tightening its belt this year. It has canceled a plan to host free dinner for the public, preferring instead to distribute the goods to remote areas in the city, said Patricia Ruivivar, chief of staff of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

Still, retailers are not giving up on the idea of Christmas as the time to splurge and spend on gifts. Advertisements for the most delightful Christmas buys and treats for children and loved ones "at low, low prices," are elbowing each other out for spaces in the malls and along city streets. Announcements for midnight sales among the four competing malls scream on the advertisement pages of local newspapers.

But while City Hall’s lighting display has practically turned the city’s Rizal Park into a magic fairyland at night, it fails to warm the chill increasingly felt among poor people’s heart.

Around Juna subdivision, Nida Panayaw, 36, chanted the Matigsalog’s Christmas song to the haunting tune of the kudlong and saluroy native string instruments they brought here from the hinterland mountains of Paquibato. "Share a gift now that Christmastime is here," her song went. Panayaw was going around the blocks of subdivision houses with her nephew who played the music and another one who danced to it. But Panayaw was disappointed at the few coins that residents and occasional passersby managed to shell out.

She’s one of the hundreds of Matigsalogs coming down to the city for the Yuletide season this year for the promise of Christmas and the traditional gifts. Just a couple of steps away, a brightly lit Christmas tree at the NCCC mall entrance seemed to beckon.

"We are very poor, we have nothing," said Luisa Robles, 41, who sell grilled banana along the sidewalks of Bonifacio Street. "How can you expect us to share something that we don’t have?" she replied when asked if she had given coins to carolers like Panayaw.

Inside the homes of many Davao families, the impact of high prices are felt most acutely. “We barely have food to eat sometimes and would we still be preparing for Christmas?” asked Fely Gonzales, a resident of Quimpo Boulevard. Fely, who works at the laundry department of the Apo View Hotel and whose husband does not have a permanent job, blamed

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the hard times, particularly the new expanded value-added tax law, which increased prices of basic commodities.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has said that Filipinos will be having a bright Christmas because of the EVAT and the remittances from overseas Filipino workers. “That is not true,” Fely said. “Look at our house, we don’t even have Christmas lights because that would be a waste of electricity.” (With a report from Gabriel Millado/davaotoday.com)