PRRD wants Filipino families to enjoy ‘happy’ Christmas

MANILA — With only 36 days to go before Christmas, President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday wished that his fellow Filipinos would remain cheerful despite the challenges they face.

Duterte expressed optimism that Filipino families would find joy when they share a simple Noche Buena, a celebration observed by the nation on Christmas Eve.

“I hope that you will be sitting on a table, having Noche Buena with your family and (being) happy about whatever the situation finds us,” he said in a press conference at Malacañan Palace on Tuesday night, when quizzed about his Christmas wish for the nation.

“I said we cannot control everything. There are things which (are) beyond our control,” he added.

The President usually welcomes Christmas with family and friends in his hometown, Davao City, where he served as mayor for more than two decades before his overwhelming victory as the country’s first leader from Mindanao in 2016.

It has also been his Christmas tradition to visit young cancer patients at the Southern Philippine Medical Center in Davao City every year.

When he was mayor of Davao City, Duterte always hosted a Christmas party for residents at his ancestral home in Bangkal village.

He, however, was no longer able to attend the event when he became president for security reasons, although the annual gift-giving continues.

Thousands of Filipinos waited outside Duterte’s old house in Bangkal last year, in the hope of receiving a present from the President.

In 2018, Duterte’s Christmas wish was to have a “progressive and peaceful” nation for the prosperity of his countrymen.

He also urged Filipinos to remember the “wealth of lessons” from the nativity of Jesus Christ.

“As we take part in the festivities during this joyous occasion, may we also contemplate on the wealth of lessons we can learn from the narrative of the Savior’s birth to the calls of compassion, kindness, and reconciliation being echoed throughout the globe,” Duterte said last year.