Songs of Christmas

How would you know that it is already the season of Christmas?

Just when I was about to go home to my abode in the North of Cebu, two young boys probably aged three or four propped on the entrance of the jeepney and banged wooden sticks to the door as they sang, “Tao po, tao po, kami na mamasko…”

I would have felt sorry for the boys but I didn’t reach into my pocket for a coin. Only God knows whoever asked them to beg for money. And if I really did, would my money go to food or anti-depressants? Also, where are the parents of these kids who are supposed to send them to school?

It happens every day. We sit so comfortably on our jeepney until a group of men belonging to various age brackets interrupt your peace and sing their way into your purses. We know the drill, they provide a disclaimer for their innocence claiming that they wouldn’t steal and that they we’re just singing for Christmas’ sake, giving no less. But we have instincts, and we do get scared.

Christmas carols have been practiced since the 1700s. Records show that Hark the Herald Angel Sing is one of the oldest yet still sung songs in our era. History tells us that these songs were offered as hymns before they were used as instruments to serenade each other’s houses. Consequently, the Cebuano ‘Daygon’ is definitely not what we are witnessing now inside jeepneys. It is a form of literature where the story of Christ’s birth is narrated or rather sung in a lengthy song from house to house sometimes in exchange for money, sometimes for a healthy dinner coupled with the strum of a guitar and the classic rondalla.

But nobody does that now. It is enough to sing about the reindeer with a red nose and the white snow claiming that it is Christmas time, grab hold of a few coins and run to the next house or jeepney to ask for more in that case. We enjoy these songs but all this sad commercialism is misleading us when it has been really about the birth of Christ sometime during December of the Gregorian calendar.

The question of giving or not to these jeepney carolers cannot be tainted even in the spirit of Christmas. There is a law that prevents ordinary citizens from giving on the streets as it may be a form of exploitation. If you want to give, there are appropriate agencies for this, both of the government and those that are privately owned. Or maybe, give them food to eat from your purse. If they spat at you for giving food not money, then you’d know something fishy is up their sleeve.

I pity the children who are milked by individuals who think so highly of themselves. Moreover, I question the parents of these children for their irresponsibility. Every child has the right to play, to learn and more certainly, the right to enjoy Christmas like every child does.

So for every young boy who goes up the jeepney step and sings another of those Christmas carols asking for money, you’d rather want to find another activity that is worth your time than begging on the streets. Christmas is for you to celebrate, not to work from.