EDITORIAL - Beware of Christmas greetings.

Only in the Philippines.

Employees at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport are prohibited from greeting any arriving or departing passenger a Merry Christmas. It is not clear if the directive applies to other airports in the country, but the message is clear no matter the scope of the order.

To those not familiar with the Philippines, the order is strange and ironic. How come, of all times to ban the expression of good tidings, it should be right smack in the middle of the Christmas season? And to think we proudly proclaim ourselves a staunchly Catholic country.

Well, while that may be so, we also happen to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And to those unfamiliar with how things work here, a Christmas greeting at the airport can mean something else other than just a genuine attempt to bring good cheer.

An airport, any airport in the Philippines, plays host to certain types of employees who feel that passengers, especially those who are arriving from abroad, have an obligation to share a part of their good fortune with airport workers.

In other times, these employees can get so brazen that they actually tell it to the faces of passengers that they want a share of this or that item from among their belongings. And for one reason or another, they often succeed in getting what they want.

Most arriving passengers have a particular mindset that sets them up perfectly to be victimized. Even if these passengers are guilty of nothing, they always have this fear that the authorities will find something among their belongings that will get them into trouble.

And so these passengers are primed for exploitation. And because this is the Christmas season, most passengers are always laden with the fruits of their labor. They know this. And the airport employees know it even more.

But instead of outright harassment and intimidation, the Christmas season provides airport employees with a built-in excuse to be more subtle. Who can put up a good defense against someone who smiles broadly while looking at your luggage and greets you a Merry Christmas?

The news about the ban on Christmas greetings at the airport may strike citizens of other countries as someout odd. What a strange country the Philippines must seem to them, that it would ban Christmas greetings during Christmas. If they only knew.