Pope Francis is visiting the Philippines in January 2015. During this time special non-working holidays have been declared in Metro Manila from basically January 15 - 19, 2015.
I don't know if it occurred to anyone, but for most employees special non-working holidays means no work, no pay. That's what the government says, unless your company has a more beneficial collective bargaining agreement. So that's basically three days of salary people will be missing out.
So ask yourselves this, would you rather have five straight days of rest with no compensation or three days of work with salary? I know I'd pick the latter.
Besides, it's not as if we as a country are 100% Roman Catholic. What about all our countrymen who have different beliefs?
I'm Roman Catholic, and I'd rather have those three work days, specially since it's only January. We just came from the holiday season and already we're getting another five days of no work? Pass. Maybe if the Pope was visiting sometime in the middle of the year, I wouldn't mind. But right now, I'm ready to work, and work hard. I don't really want the long holiday to disrupt my rhythm.
This is also bad for business owners. Because if they tell their employees to go to work, they have to pay them the overtime pay. Good for employees, bad for business owners. See it from both sides of the coin.
Look, i'm not saying I'm against the Pope's visit. I appreciate the fact that he's coming over, actually. What I'm not in favor of is the long, unpaid, holiday coming up.
Maybe if they declared the Pope's visit as regular holidays, then I wouldn't mind.
Out.
