Holiday Surprise!

Yesterday Malacanang announced that May 3 will be a non-working holiday. After many years in the country, the concept of holidays in this country perplexes me. To this very day I still cannot explain the difference between "a non working holiday" and a regular holiday.

I looked up the definition of holiday and this is what I got:

A day free from work that one may spend at leisure, especially a day on which custom or the law dictates a halting of general business activity to commemorate or celebrate a particular event.

So by its very definition "holiday" means free from work. Then what does non-working holiday mean? I know some lucky people consider their work also their hobby, so perhaps it is to make clear to them that they too should really take a break?

Semantics of holidays aside, the concept of movable holidays was also novel to me. In most countries I've worked, the holidays were pretty much fixed. If they were not fixed to a specific date, they would be dictated by the position of the moon, or some specific event well in advance.

In the Philippines, holidays are more like surprise parties. You may suspect something is up, but you never really know when it will hit you. Yesterday I still believed labour day would fall on a Saturday, but the whole office turned into a frenzy when it came down the wire it was moved to May 3 instead.

Being thoroughly confused about all this, someone tried to explain that it has all to do with holiday economics. Holiday economics?

Apparently, the term Holiday Economics was coined by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who introduced the policy in 2001 to reduce disruption to business and production schedules, and give employees long weekends.

OK, makes sense. Minimal disruption to business. It is generally better to have a holiday on a Friday or Monday so you do not need to idle things down in the middle of the week. This is great if I can plan for. Since planning takes a lot of time, especially if you have a lot of parties involved, we generally like to do it well in advance. Of course, you cannot take into account all eventualities, but the more you get out of the way now, the less you have to worry in future. Holidays are typically things that you do not need to worry about because they are fixed or communicated well in advance.

But wait, you are telling me we cannot plan for holidays because they announced only a few days in advance, sometimes only hours? So how again is this Holiday Surprise Party going to help me minimize disruption to my business?

Some say you should plan for these holiday surprises, expecting Labour Day to fall anywhere between April 30 and May 3. But why add more variables to an already hectic business environment? It is already difficult as it is.

If it is not going to help my business, perhaps Holiday Economics does encourage domestic tourism. People get extra time off that they can spend outside the house, thus helping local tourist enterprises gain more revenue. Unfortunately, going on a holiday here does require a bit of planning. You have to organize transportation, lodging, etc, etc. Oops! How am I supposed to plan a long weekend get-away with only a few days notice?

Of course I'm the type that likes to plan a lot, but surely others like to have some lead time too? I've asked various people to see if they are making good use of the new long weekend, and so far I did not get any positive responses. Most people said "no, because it's too late to book", others said "no, because I could not reschedule my existing itinerary", and the worst one "no, I had to cancel my weekend stay in the Philippines because my meeting on Monday got canceled". So much for benefiting the local tourist industry.