Palace mulls Chinese holiday

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang is looking into the possibility of including the Chinese New Year in the country’s more than a dozen holidays.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said President Aquino has instructed the executive secretary to check if it would be necessary to declare the Chinese New Year a holiday, reportedly in response to clamor from the local Chinese community. This year’s Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 3.

The President himself is part Chinese. Lacierda is also of Chinese descent and speaks fluent Mandarin and Fookien.

Last December, Aquino released a list of holidays for this year through Proclamation 84. His list is a deviation from the so-called holiday economics of his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who is now a Pampanga congresswoman.

In Arroyo’s time, holidays were usually observed near weekends to give Filipinos long vacations.

Aquino said Filipinos should properly commemorate major historical and cultural events and that politics has nothing to do with his decision to do away with holiday economics.

“I was given a set of three choices, I chose the one that didn’t disrupt our people’s ability to make a living,” Aquino said.

Aquino also rejected insinuations that an employers’ group lobbied for the cancellation of Arroyo’s holiday economics policy.

“My point No.1 is we have to pay proper respect. No.2, we have to minimize disruption in the economy. A holiday that falls on a weekend is observed on the same day so that daily wage earners can earn more,” he said.

Republic Act 9492 sets special and regular holidays and provides that holidays, except those religious in nature, are moved to the nearest Monday.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Eduardo de Mesa said it is within the President’s prerogative to move “holidays that are movable” to the nearest Monday.

“That is within his discretion,” De Mesa said.