In our Philippine calendar, we have a Good Friday, and never ever is it black. We reflect and pray in the Friday of Lent in anticipation of joyful Easter Sunday. Here in the States, Black Friday which follows Thanksgiving Day is the busiest shopping day in the entire continent. In Disney World where we spent this year’s Thanksgiving Day, a store announced that its Black Friday sale would open at 12:00 a.m. That meant midnight of Thursday. Hearken ye, early birds!

We Filipinos have the reputation of being great imitators, but these are only on the cultural fringe. Do I see the kids gone “Trick or Treat” in their Halloween masks? It seems I saw you putting snowy cotton balls on the Christmas tree, or kissing Santa Claus.  Okay, we go with the flow on the surface of things, but deep down we are excellent in the brains department (e.g., my daughter Randy Raissa besting other Asian and white physicians. Kindly indulge this proud mother, dear reader.). And we do excel in brawns and muscles, too. Long live Manny Pacquiao!

Gosh, I’m making a round-about way to what I’m really driving at: Exclude the Americans’ Black Friday in the Filipinos’ days of observance, Black Friday that comes after Thanksgiving Day in the last week of November. Observed nationwide, Thanksgiving Day is when families get together to give thanks for the blessings, joined by friends and relatives who are separated from their own loved ones because of distance. In an American family, dinner is usually served with a big stuffed turkey on the platter and a pumpkin pie along with a variety of drinkables and eatables. I don’t know for other Pinoys, but thanksgiving for me is a daily custom that goes with the night prayers. 

As it had been in the past, days prior to Black Friday, announcements flooded the TV and print media about huge discounts on a cornucopia of items that inveigled consumers. Folks who wanted to be first in line brought chairs and sleeping gears with them before Black Friday’s crack of dawn. Four years ago, I recall my hubby Rudy and our son-in-law David going to the Best Buy department store for a camera said to be an awfully cheap bargain. They were there four o’clock in the morning only to come back because the long line of customers went beyond the corner of the block. No use waiting for long hours in the cold of the morning.

My daughter Raileen and her husband Nixon had a different story. They wanted a printer for their office. The alarm was set to wake them up so they can be among the early birds or the first to buy this particular item. Their hustle-bustle was useless because the price of the printer stayed the same, Black Friday or not. Come to think of it, who among those front runners really came for a printer? Only Raileen and Nixon, I suppose. In a contest for the salable and buyable item, the printer will fail. It is not hot among the array of gadgetry.

Last night, Randy was home from her hospital work with the news that somebody died in the Black Friday scuffle. She didn’t have a clear idea whether the death was brought about by a heart attack in the mad rush for a bargain. What a waste. A life gone kaput for the sake of a meager dollar savings.

Black Friday is of course a favorite with Big Business that manipulates consumerism to max out. CEOs and the “Corporate Evil Doers” get a nice day running to the bank while the customers go running with their credit cards and empty wallets. I say a Big NO to mall owners who will promote Black Friday in the Philippines. I have jotted down the paragraph below if only to dissuade my fellow Pinoys here in the U.S. of A. from joining the Black Friday madness. Read on:

“On Friday, November 28, 2008, Jdimytai Damour, a worker at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York was trampled to death by shoppers who broke through the store's glass doors minutes before the store's scheduled opening at 5:00 a.m.; a pregnant mother was hospitalized from injuries in the same human "stampede", though early reports of a resultant miscarriage were determined to be in error. On that same day, two people in Palm Desert, California were shot and killed in a Toys R Us store during an argument.” What a deadly Black Friday violence.  (Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )