DICKENSIAN IS the mood at the Pampanga Capitol, a full week before Christmas.
Employees found the P10,000 extra cash gift a pittance, expecting as they were P20,000, the same amount they received last year.
“We are not being greedy. But we would be hypocrites if we would not say that we need the money to pay for expenses this season. It’s very infuriating that some Capitol officials have bloated personal assets while Capitol employees could only get so little from government savings.” So one worker at the office of the putative provincial administrator was quoted in the papers as saying.
Responded Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio: Last year’s P20,000 was only an “accommodation.” And therefore, not an obligation on the part of the governor.
Indeed, there will be another P10,000 bonus, Panlilio declared, subject to the results of a performance evaluation of every Capitol employee, as agreed upon last year yet. Problem though is that the measurement standards have yet to be crafted.
Still, Panlilio stressed, the P10,000 extra cash gift is much higher than the government-authorized P7,000.
Ingrates, these Capitol employees are then. Panlilio already gave them more than the mandated cash gift and they still want much more!
Bah, Humbug!
Could not help but be biased and see some Ebenezer Scrooge in Panlilio there. And a bit of the overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit in the provincial employees.
Got the drift? It’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at play in the Capitol. What a fitting story – a good read too – for the season.
Dickens’ story, as I remember from my high school reading, opens on Christmas Eve with the spirit of Scrooge’s associate Jacob Marley appearing to warn the avaricious, miserly, insensate banker-landlord that his soul will be heavily chained for eternity, if he did not change his ways; and that a series of ghosts will also make their appearances before Scrooge.
In the course of the night, the three ghosts did indeed manifest themselves before Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to his age of innocence, when all was good, even virtuous in him. This aimed to touch at the core of his being.
The Ghost of Christmas Present opened to Scrooge a panorama of the holiday rush, with all its contrasts – happy people in a prosperous market shopping for their Christmas dinner, the lean meal of the Cratchit family, the cottage of a an impoverished miner, a lighthouse, etcetera. This intended to impact in the heartless Scrooge a sense of responsibility, of caring for his fellow man.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come tormented Scrooge with terrifying visions of the future if he did not learn from and act upon what he has seen with the second ghost, the most frightening of which were the graves for Scrooge and for the son of Cratchit, the crippled Tiny Tim who, impliedly, died because Scrooge so undercompensated Tim’s father that he failed to pay for his healthcare.
Even more distressing to Scrooge was a vision of his own death with no one caring, with no one coming to his wake and funeral.
Those visions sparked Scrooge’s own epiphany.
Christmas morning found Scrooge filled with joy and love in his heart, transformed overnight and full of compassion and generosity to his fellowmen, being now the embodiment of the very spirit of Christmas. Happy ending of Dickens’ Christmas story.
So what can be a happy ending to the Capitol story of the moment?
A Panlilio ousted from the governorship – so wished a number of employees, all too spontaneously and simultaneously.
Now, now, that ain’t in keeping up with the First Christmas story.
Employees found the P10,000 extra cash gift a pittance, expecting as they were P20,000, the same amount they received last year.
“We are not being greedy. But we would be hypocrites if we would not say that we need the money to pay for expenses this season. It’s very infuriating that some Capitol officials have bloated personal assets while Capitol employees could only get so little from government savings.” So one worker at the office of the putative provincial administrator was quoted in the papers as saying.
Responded Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio: Last year’s P20,000 was only an “accommodation.” And therefore, not an obligation on the part of the governor.
Indeed, there will be another P10,000 bonus, Panlilio declared, subject to the results of a performance evaluation of every Capitol employee, as agreed upon last year yet. Problem though is that the measurement standards have yet to be crafted.
Still, Panlilio stressed, the P10,000 extra cash gift is much higher than the government-authorized P7,000.
Ingrates, these Capitol employees are then. Panlilio already gave them more than the mandated cash gift and they still want much more!
Bah, Humbug!
Could not help but be biased and see some Ebenezer Scrooge in Panlilio there. And a bit of the overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit in the provincial employees.
Got the drift? It’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at play in the Capitol. What a fitting story – a good read too – for the season.
Dickens’ story, as I remember from my high school reading, opens on Christmas Eve with the spirit of Scrooge’s associate Jacob Marley appearing to warn the avaricious, miserly, insensate banker-landlord that his soul will be heavily chained for eternity, if he did not change his ways; and that a series of ghosts will also make their appearances before Scrooge.
In the course of the night, the three ghosts did indeed manifest themselves before Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to his age of innocence, when all was good, even virtuous in him. This aimed to touch at the core of his being.
The Ghost of Christmas Present opened to Scrooge a panorama of the holiday rush, with all its contrasts – happy people in a prosperous market shopping for their Christmas dinner, the lean meal of the Cratchit family, the cottage of a an impoverished miner, a lighthouse, etcetera. This intended to impact in the heartless Scrooge a sense of responsibility, of caring for his fellow man.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come tormented Scrooge with terrifying visions of the future if he did not learn from and act upon what he has seen with the second ghost, the most frightening of which were the graves for Scrooge and for the son of Cratchit, the crippled Tiny Tim who, impliedly, died because Scrooge so undercompensated Tim’s father that he failed to pay for his healthcare.
Even more distressing to Scrooge was a vision of his own death with no one caring, with no one coming to his wake and funeral.
Those visions sparked Scrooge’s own epiphany.
Christmas morning found Scrooge filled with joy and love in his heart, transformed overnight and full of compassion and generosity to his fellowmen, being now the embodiment of the very spirit of Christmas. Happy ending of Dickens’ Christmas story.
So what can be a happy ending to the Capitol story of the moment?
A Panlilio ousted from the governorship – so wished a number of employees, all too spontaneously and simultaneously.
Now, now, that ain’t in keeping up with the First Christmas story.
