CHRISTMAS SEASON AS A MIRROR OF FILIPINOS’
COMMUNICATIVE BEHAVIOR
The Christmas season reflects the culture of the Filipinos in terms of communication. From the vibrant and shimmering parols displayed everywhere, the gigantic trees with hanging ornaments and decorations, and the cold weather filling the air of jam-packed streets with Filipinos rushing to buy some gifts—one can definitely feel and sense that Christmas is just around the corner. Since then, Filipinos are known to possess these habits as soon as the first day of September comes. For the latter, Christmas is not just a one day thing, but months of celebration and preparation.
From the foods, home decorations, and songs played on the radio, each Filipino household does its best to ensure a perfect and well-curated celebration of the season of love and giving. However, Filipinos get so used to these habits that they tend to forget how to deeply analyze such behaviors. Thus, it is important to ask questions such as, “how does the Christmas season reveal the communicative behavior of Filipinos?”, and “how can we further understand such behaviors through the lens of our culture?”.
It is essential to take into account the history of Christmas in the Philippines to lay foundation to the preceding culture. In particular, religion has a huge role to play on why Christmas is widely celebrated in the country. Evidently, the 3 decade colonization of Spain brought the country into its present-day number of 92.5% Filipino Christians (Stanford Medicine, n.d.). Due to this faith, it is deeply embedded in Filipino culture that Christmas is an important occasion to commemorate the birth of the savior, Jesus Christ, and to therefore radiate love among fellow Filipinos and loved ones during the season— just like what Christ would do. This belief may seem like a mere or usual teaching in Sunday school, but it is surprisingly the foundation of some of the Filipinos’ communicative behaviors especially during Christmas.
In particular, Edward Hall and Midred Hall’s concepts of high-context (HC) communication and low-context (LC) communication give us a glimpse of the Filipino culture’s concept of giving and receiving during the holiday.
An example of low-context communication during Christmas is the well-known caroling tradition of Filipinos wherein they sing and perform often in the neighborhood to ask for some pamasko. In this case, Filipinos directly express their intention to ask for some gifts or money from other people.
Also, the concept of exchanging gifts or monito monita falls under such communication since each participant is well-informed that they’ll give and receive in the said Christmas tradition.
Lastly, the monetary benefit of workers during the Christmas season called 13th month pay is also a form of low-context communication. Such benefit is explicit as it is even part of the Labor Code of the Philippines which obliges employers to provide their employees with (DOLE, 2022).
High-context communication also occurs during the season. Specifically, during Christmas, most children already expect to receive gifts from their parents, godparents, and other family members. Such expectations are often indirectly expressed because it is already understood that children are meant to receive gifts or aginaldos during Christmas. Also, similar high-context communication happens towards working adults who are no longer expected to receive gifts, but are rather assumed to give or provide for the family during the season.
On the other hand, the Filipino’s way of celebrating Christmas is also seen in Jose Lacson’s “Filipino Communicative Behavior” which refers to the unique communicative behaviors of Filipinos based on experiences and culture (Lacson, 2005). Under such, he discussed several mindsets of Filipinos that are heavily associated with how Filipinos communicate. Among the stated mindsets, the “Deprivation-Deservation Syndrome” along with “Sense of Humor” are the most evident during Filipino Christmas.
An example of deprivation-deservation syndrome among Filipinos during holidays is seen on how they overspend. Filipinos have a mindset that Christmas only happens once in a year and that they deserve to spend over the budget and spoil themselves and their family in exchange for all the hard work they’ve done during the previous months. Because Christmas is tagged as the season of “giving”, some Filipinos even fall into debt and complete financial mismanagement after holidays just to meet the said “giving” culture (Lastimosa, 2019).
This mindset is also in connection with Filipino ways of interpersonal communication that were explored by Maggay in 2002. In particular, Filipinos overspend not just to satisfy their families, but to also establish a good impression among others, or to have a celebration better than others. Specifically, Filipinos often display pagpapakitang giliw and paglalantad ng sarili during Christmas to have some pabonggahan or pabidahan (Maggay, 2002) against some of their relatives, neighbors, or enemies. This also sometimes leads to financial debt as some Filipinos prioritize their image more than their financial stability.
Furthermore, the sense of humor mindset of Filipinos are also highlighted during Christmas wherein it is seen that no difficulty can stop Filipinos from celebrating the season. Since the country is prone to typhoons especially during “ber” months, some areas are often targeted by such calamity during the month of December. An example is how most parts of Surigao were wiped out last 2021 by typhoon Odette. In this case, Filipinos from Surigao continued to celebrate Christmas with the help of volunteers despite the devastating circumstance in front of them (Catoto, 2021).
To conclude, Christmas is a great reflection of the Filipinos' communicative behaviors. On a good note, the Filipino way of celebrating the season is something to look out for in other countries. Indeed, it is amazing how Filipinos unite and do their best to celebrate the most-awaited season. Also, it’s heartwarming to see how undeniably selfless Filipinos are when it comes to their loved ones. However, the negative side which is unfortunate to witness is how Filipinos forget to draw the line in terms of how much they will spend during the holidays. Perhaps, the best way for Filipinos to iron out their toxic communicative behaviors during Christmas is by also looking at how other countries celebrate the season.
References:
Catoto, R. (2021). A blue Christmas in Siargao but spirit of volunteerism prevails. MindaNews. https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2021/12/a-blue-christmas-in-siargao-but-spirit-of-volunteerism-prevails/
Department of Labor and Employment. (2022). Untitled. DOLE-RO7. https://ro7.dole.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Labor-Advisory-No.-23-22-Guidelines-on-the-Payment-of-Thirteenth-Month-Pay-1.pdf
Hall, E. T., & Hall, M. R. (1990). UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. http://teaching.up.edu/bus511/xculture/Hall%20and%20Hall%201990,%20ch1.pdf
Lacson, J. R. (2005). Mindsets of the Filipino: A Research Agenda for Filipino Communicative Behavior. MODESTO FAROLAN PROFESSIONAL CHAIR.
Lastimosa, L. (2019). After the holidays, Filipinos are in debts. Philippine Star. https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/opinion/2019/01/10/1883816/after-holidays-filipinos-are-debts/amp/
Maggay, M. P. (2002). Pahiwatig: kagawiang pangkomunikasyon ng Filipino. Ateneo de Manila University Press.Stanford Medicine. (n.d.). Religion. Geriatrics – Ethnogeriatrics. https://geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnomed/filipino/introduction/religion.html