MANILA, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- As early as October, Ellen Reyes has booked a resort villa in Laguna province, south of the Philippine capital and famous for hot-spring bathhouses, planning to spend Christmas eve there with her whole family. She will have to pay 26,000 pesos (roughly 470 U.S. dollars) for an overnight stay.
Marielle Catbagan and her friends of over 30 years also got together early this month to enjoy native Filipino food and sip Italian fine wine in a friend's house, their favorite hangout place since the late 1980s.
Christmas is marked by big celebrations in the Philippines where most of its population professes the Catholic faith. It is the time when Filipino families and friends gather for yearly reunions, weddings, and endless parties. They celebrate Christmas for four months, starting in September and ending in January.
Shopping malls, decked with Christmas trimmings and blinking lights, and playing Christmas carols to bring festivity to mall-goers, now operate at full capacity as COVID-19 infections and hospitalization become manageable.
Filipinos broke so many festive Christmas traditions in 2020 and 2021 as the Southeast Asian country grapples with a steady increase in COVID-19 cases.
From a steep of nearly 40,000 daily cases in January this year, Department of Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said coronavirus transmission has plateaued mid-December, with the current seven-day moving average at 1,100 per day.
Masking, although still recommended, is now optional in most settings, and face-to-face classes have resumed.
Filipinos are celebrating Christmas with "revenge" this year, meeting maskless with kin and friends for the first time in three years.
Traffic jams are back in Metro Manila, the country's economic and business center with nearly 13.5 million people, as people rush to Christmas parties, holiday shopping, and reunions.
Many mall operators say that shopper traffic has returned to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. People can now linger in shopping malls, eat in restaurants and watch movies in cinemas. Shoppers also flocked to flea markets that crop up during the holiday season.
The Philippine economy has steadily recovered from the pandemic, with six consecutive quarters of robust expansion after five successive quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth beginning in the first quarter of 2020.
"In 2022, recall that we have thus far been able to attain an average GDP growth of 7.7 percent, which puts us on track to meet the annual 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent growth target," Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said.
The country's employment situation improved as unemployment fell to 4.5 percent in October 2022 from 7.4 percent in October 2021. In addition, the underemployment rate decreased to 14.2 percent from 16.1 percent during this period.
Balisacan said the consumption on the demand side and services on the supply side continues to fuel the Philippine economy's growth.
However, record high inflation and soaring prices may be a disappointing topic for Filipinos in the festival mood.
Unlike wealthy families such as the Reyeses and Catbagan, Pinang Blacer, a domestic helper, looks forward to modest Christmas and New Year celebrations.
With a monthly salary of 5,000 pesos (roughly 90 dollars), Blacer, her partner who works as a jeepney driver, and her 87-year-old father-in-law will not feast on hams and imported food.
Due to the soaring prices, the Blacers will only cook some noodles, rice cake, and fish to welcome 2023.
In November, the inflation rate in the Philippines accelerated to 8 percent, the highest since November 2008, resulting in a higher price of vegetables, fruits, and rice.
The government warns that inflation may continue to be driven by a confluence of factors, including the continuing external geopolitical conflicts raising the prices of oil and fertilizers, lower local food production due to the reduction of the supplies owing to African swine fever, avian influenza, and typhoons.
Other factors jacking up the cost of food and energy imports include the peso depreciation, non-tariff barriers preventing timely importation whenever local production falls short of consumption, and second-round effects due to fare increases and wage hikes.
"The lingering uncertainties and challenges, which include monetary tightening worldwide, have caused slowdowns and are expected to result in recessions among developed countries and slower growth for emerging economies such as the Philippines," Balisacan said.
Despite the headwinds the Philippines face, the government's economic team remains optimistic, expecting its economy to sustain the growth momentum.
"We aim to accompany this expansion with headline and food inflation rates of 2.5 percent to 4.5 percent and an unemployment rate of 5.3 percent to 6.4 percent," he added.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Felipe Medalla said domestic demand remains firm amid the monetary policy tightening implemented by the Philippine central bank to safeguard price stability.
"The government's decision to retain the medium-term inflation target underpins the BSP's commitment to take all necessary action to bring inflation to a target-consistent path in the medium term," Medalla said. ■