Coming home for the holidays

Home is where Christmas has been traditionally celebrated, and the Yuletide Season is one important celebration that never fails to reunite families throughout the world.

Having been out of the country for almost 10 years since she started working on Saipan initially as a restaurant waitstaff, Rosanna is coming home to celebrate this year’s Christmas with her family in a province south of Manila. It will be her first in a decade.

Despite the skyrocketing expenses that go along with Christmas celebration in the Philippines, not to mention the fact that she has been perceived to be raking greenback here, Rosanna says the money she is about to burn back home could not equal the joy of spending the holidays with her family.

Rosanna is not alone in her longing to celebrate Christmas with relatives. She joins thousands of workers in the Northern Marianas who have planned to fly back home and those who are actually flying back home during the holidays.

Travel agencies on Saipan reports that a big number of Filipino workers are starting to secure airline booking for December as early as June to assure themselves that there is an aircraft seat readily available for them.

Century Travel Agency says airline seats, especially for flights to Manila from Saipan, for the first 25 days of December are normally fully booked by November, which indicates that the age-old Philippine tradition of spending the Christmas with the family continues to thrive within most Filipinos here.

Juvy Nenette R. Savellano, an eight-year agent for World Tour & Travel, says Manila continues to be among the biggest market for the agency every December.

“We are oftentimes fully booked for the Dec. 1-25 flights by middle November. More than 95 percent of our customers who are booked to Manila during these days are Filipinos,” Ms. Savellano told an interview.

Talking from her eight-year experience in the travel industry, Ms. Savellano points out that majority of those who book airline seats early push through with their trip and most of them cite as reason their desire to spend Christmas with family.

According to the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, the number of Filipino workers getting Overseas Employment Certificate, a document they should show immigration personnel in Manila, has been traditionally high during the November-December period.