Christmas...only in the Philippines!

(First of two parts) 

CHRISTMAS can be the most poignant time of the year for many Filipinos working and living abroad. 

Banker-turned-microfinancier Joey Bermudez (standing) with his brood in Ontario, Canada.

While they have established themselves in their host countries, becoming successful professionals and gaining acceptance among their foreign peers, most admit that when the Yuletide season comes around, they can’t help but long for the Christmases past spent in the Philippines. 

After all, the celebration here is probably the longest in the world, and maybe the most unique. As soon as September rolls in, Christmas carols start playing on the radio and in the malls. Sidewalks start teeming with puto bumbong and bibingka vendors, and their sweet smells just fill the nighttime air. 

There will be endless parties and reunions in companies and among families by December 1, and by the 16th most homes will be brightly lit with their festive lanterns (parols) guiding the way of sleepyheads trying to complete the nine-day Simbang Gabi (dawn Masses), then culminating in the Misa de Aguinaldo on Christmas Eve and after, a massive Noche Buena feast. 

The celebration officially ends by the first Sunday of January, the feast of the Three Kings. Only then will families take down their Christmas décor and start going to the gym to burn the fat accumulated from all the Yuletide feasting. 

My old pal from San Miguel, Chec del Mundo, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 

While Filipinos abroad have created their own unique Pinoy Christmas in their new homelands, many of them agree, the Philippines is still the best place to celebrate the holidays. There’s just something magical in the air that lifts our spirits and moves us to give joy to others, in a warm and caring way most unique to our country. 

Here, a few friends based overseas share their thoughts about what they miss most about celebrating Christmas in the Philippines: 

JOEY BERMUDEZ (Oakville, Ontario, since 2009) 

I MISS the Simbang Gabi and the puto bumbong after Mass. I miss the stream of fruitcakes, prune cakes, brownies, pies, cheese, chocolates and all sorts of delicacies that people give each other during the season. I miss the bright lights of Ayala Avenue and the illuminated fountains of Ayala Triangle. I miss our dry roads at Christmas time unlike the wet and snowy roads in Canada. 

I miss the big party at home on Christmas Eve where my parents-in-Iaw, our househelp and some guests join us in a sumptuous feast. In Canada we have the usual Noche Buena and opening of Christmas gifts, but it’s just my family that gets together after the Christmas Eve Mass. 

Lit. major, now tech solutions provider, Susan "Swannie" Morrow (right), with her husband Jesse Avraham and her late mother, Tessie Vasquez, in Brooklyn, New York.

I do not miss the intolerable traffic in almost all roads any time of the year, the inebriated drivers on the road going home from Christmas parties, the overcrowded shopping malls and Christmas bazaars, the long lines at the cash registers of stores, and the jacked-up price tags in restaurants and department stores. 

There is no Christmas like Christmas in the Philippines. About that, there should be no argument. 

CHEC DEL MUNDO (Brisbane, Australia, since 2004) 

THERE are three things I miss the most about Christmas in Manila. 

First is my family and friends and in knowing that you share the same sentiments and joy of the season. Second is the Christmas spirit that you feel as soon as September sets in. Everyone is on Christmas mode leading up to the day of festivities. People shopping in bazaars and in stores, traditional matriarchs shopping in Quiapo in the hunt for dried fruits for their homemade fruitcakes and Chinese ham, and some others making their vows to complete the nine days of Simbang Gabi. Third is the food. I miss most the puto bumbong that you team up with ginger tea, bibingka, queso de bola, and Chinese ham. Well, you can probably have them overseas, but there is so much that go into it that you can’t find here. For example, the smell of Christmas in the air, the traffic, the buzz. 

Graphic designer Chet Vergara in Los Angeles since 1987.

SUSAN MORROW (New York since 1995) 

CHRISTMAS to me is really not the glitter and gold but the simple joys of Christmas the way I knew it as a child growing up in Manila, like having puto bumbong in slightly burnt banana leaves complete with sugar, Star margarine, and coconut shavings; my grandmother’s hot pancit molo on Christmas Eve; and the excitement of waking at dawn with my mother to join her on her Simbang Gabi vigil. Then on Christmas Day itself, scrambling into my new dress to go to Church to hear Christmas Mass. After which, most unforgettable of all, is lining up in long queues to get my aguinaldo from my lolo and lola, titos and titas! P1 from each one of them! 

A semblance of this kind of Christmas was still possible here in New York when my mother was alive and my siblings and our better halves gathered around her. She would spend all week cooking our favorite Filipino dishes—beef caldereta, embotido, pancit bihon, and my only contribution to the feast, mocha chiffon cake. She passed away in January 2011.  

CHET VERGARA (Los Angeles since 1987) 

OF course, there’s the FOOD. Nothing like puto bumbong straight out of the bumbong. Aling Mameng’s lengua, Estrella’s caramel cake, countless variations of lechon, morcon, pancit Malabon—shall I go on? 

Journalist Jojo Dass in Dubai, UAE since 2008.

I miss the impulsive gift-giving and receiving gifts without judgment or suspicion. (OK, I will judge your gift but I really do appreciate it regardless!). Over here, I have stopped giving gifts at work after all the puzzled looks and outright indifference I got distributing gifts one year. 

I guess the thing I miss most is the warmth. The genuine expression of caring and sharing the joy of the season no matter what emotional or financial situation one happens to be in. To feel the collective excitement that elicits smiles from family, friends and even strangers. The thought that life can be good, love can be found and everything will be alright. 

JOJO DASS (Dubai since 2008) 

I MISS the big family gatherings with the big buffet spread—a reunion of sorts with the people you rarely meet during the year, or almost don’t see anymore. Of course, I miss Makati’s tinseltown, the dawn Mass at UST, puto bumbong and the carolings. 

JAMES ONG (Singapore since 2007) 

When we were younger, the most exciting part of Christmas was buying everyone gifts. A few days before the Eve, we’d be given a gifts allowance and we would join the mad crowds at Philcite or Harrison Plaza to look for cheap presents. After I moved to Quezon City as an adult and living with fellow bachelors, I counted on others to feed me. Inspired by Gilda Cordero Fernando’s “leftover party,” I would ask close friends (most of them single) to come to the house on the 25th and bring highlights of their Noche Buena. 

Lifestyle editor James Perez Ong in Singapore since 2007. (Photo by www.style-anywhere.com)

One time I set up a 20-seater Italian-style dining table al fresco and guests were arriving hour after hour. It was a magical night, everything was makeshift, nothing fancy at all, but for me it captured the essence of Christmas: love, friendship and togetherness. Until now, friends ask me when I plan to do another leftover party. I can’t wait to host the next one. Most of these friends are now married with kids so it should be exciting. 

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. This piece was published on Dec. 21, 2012. All photos provided by interviewees.) 

Joey Bermudez retiring from Chinatrust

...but isn't turning his back on banking

WHEN news spread about the impending retirement of Chinatrust Philippines president Joey A. Bermudez, he was besieged by text messages and calls from the media. Some reporters expressed concern and wanted to know if he was sick. Those who’ve covered the banking beat and who’ve become his friends have seen Bermudez shrink in weight, which some of us thought troubling, just in the last couple of years.

“No, no!” protests the 52-year-old banker as we got together for lunch last week, a day after Chinatrust reported to the Philippine Stock Exchange that the board of directors had accepted his retirement, effective April 2. “Everyone in the family is just on a health kick. My wife, my kids, my [second] son is even buffed. When he visits the office all the girls say he’s delicious!” he reports to us in his usual deadpan humor face.

He also corrects the misconception that he’s permanently leaving the banking industry. “I’m just retiring from Chinatrust,” he says, which again brought up questions from us about his stint at the Taiwanese-owned bank, and more inquiries about just exactly why he’s leaving it after seven years of service. Did they give him a hard time? Was there any language problem (snickers all around the table)?

But Bermudez dispels all that between mouthfuls of roast chicken by explaining that, actually, he’s taking a break because of his family. “I’m bringing my kids to Canada this April. They’ve all been vocal about wanting to study abroad kasi,” he says. The kids are Miguel, 20; Angelo, 19; Rafael, 14; Gabriel, 11; and the youngest, a girl, Christina, 10. “From April to June, Ester [his wife] and I will go to Canada, look for schools for them and for a house they can live in. Then we’ll come back, ang mga bata lang maiiwan du’n,” he continues.

For those still not in the know, Canada has one of the best educational systems in the world, and the standards of its universities are comparable with even the most distinguished private institutions in the United States, but at almost half the tuition.

Banking veteran
A subsidiary of Chinatrust Commercial Bank Ltd. of Taiwan, Chinatrust Philippines was initially incorporated as Access Banking Corp. in September 1995. It changed to its present name, Chinatrust (Philippines) Commercial Bank Corp., in January 1996 after the Taiwan bank took full ownership of the bank. In June 1999 its shares were finally listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

But when Bermudez took over as president in 2001, everyone we knew went “Chinatrust? Ano ’yon?” No one had heard about the bank, except for those who were in the banking industry.



Bermudez has a long distinguished career, working in various major banks — Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), PCIBank, Solidbank and, lastly, Philippine Savings Bank — and mentored under the hardiest and most prominent bankers of the time, one of whom, Rafael Buenaventura, even went on to become the central bank governor.

But Bermudez, who has never backed down from a good challenge especially when it comes to creating new bank products and strategies, went ahead to take over as president of what many thought as an obscure bank. Talking to him then, his friends asked what the bank’s owners offered him that was so appetizing he just had to leave his cushy job at PSBank. “They’re giving me a car. But since I still have to prove myself, isa lang ang side-view mirror,” he joshed at the time. That side-view-mirror joke has become standard entertainment fare everytime we get together.

Unlike other Chinatrust branches around Asia, the Philippine branch is the only one that has a local as its head, and the only one whose local business is as dominant as its Taiwanese business. In other countries, Chinatrust primarily targets the global Chinese. “The shareholders agreed with me that our full commercial banking franchise would be underutilized if we were to run after the Taiwanese niche alone. We had to offer products for Filipinos, otherwise we won’t be able to sufficiently enlarge our revenues,” he explains.

So from a small institution, Chinatrust’s lending portfolio has grown into respectable volumes, which is no mean feat considering that it is a foreign bank in a highly competitive local industry. Its consumer loan portfolio has risen to over P5 billion from near zero in 2001. Low-cost deposits have more than quadrupled since 2001. “We also built an Internet-powered debit-card business which has grown to 250,000 cards from zero in 2001,” he notes. Chinatrust branches have expanded to 2, from 18 in 2001, and its brand is now as familiar as most major local banks.

So we assume that Bermudez has already earned that other side-view mirror.

Microfinance
Despite his almost maniacal schedule overseeing the bank’s operations and meeting with colleagues from the parent bank, Bermudez managed to find time to finish his thesis to finally graduate with a Master’s Degree in Business Economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific in 2004. He’s also managed trips to the gym, which explains his trimmed-down physique, and occasional swats at the golf ball.

Asked what he’s going to do now, Bermudez admits considering the possibility of going into microfinance lending. Having started his career as an agribanker at BPI, this is no far stretch for Bermudez. Thinking up of ways to help channel more loans to the agricultural sector and to small and medium enterprises — the usually unbankable sectors—was when he was at his happiest. He considers those days “the most enjoyable” in his entire banking career. In fact, when he was still there, PCIBank always garnered the best bank award from the Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises (GFSME) because of the institution’s sizeable lending to such firms. But banks need institutions, like GFSME then, or the Small Business Guarantee Fund Corp. now, to guarantee the loans to the smaller ventures and ensure repayment to the banks.

“With microfinance, you can give vent to your creativity because the structure is less rigid, the rules are more flexible, unlike formal bank lending,” Bermudez explains.

He is already dipping his foot in the sector. Through a tieup with the Management Association of the Philippines, of which he is vice president, he is helping former President Corazon Aquino’s Pinoy Me foundation to assist microfinance institutions to securitize their receivables. “This is so they don’t have to depend on banks for funds. They can just go to the capital markets to raise funds by securitizing their assets,” he says.

The idea is to take a group of investors to buy the loan portfolio of a microfinance company so the latter can use the funds to lend to more borrowers. There is no cost to the borrowers as they will still be paying the same interest rate to the microfinance company, which remains as the loan-collecting agent.

Bermudez is also considering to teach at a business school in the meantime. But he stresses he isn’t closing his doors totally on the banking industry where he honed his career. “I will respond to opportunities as they present themselves, giving more weight this time to what my heart desires rather than what appeals to the pockets.”

But what if a bank offers you a car with two side-view mirrors this time? we ask. “Hmmm....I’ll have to think long about that one,” he answers, deadpan again; and on cue, we all burst out laughing.

(My interview and photo of Joey Bermudez was originally published in the BusinessMirror on Jan. 25, 2008)