Andrea Celyn Hinojales

Cold winds are approaching, puto bumbong is being prepared, and tunes of Jose Mari Chan’s Christmas carols are now echoing in the streets. As the first day of September marks, his face and songs would ring to welcome the Filipino Yuletide season as dubbed the “King of Christmas.”


With his famous songs such as “Christmas in Our Hearts” and “A Perfect Christmas,” his carols are the perfect partner while eating Noche Buena with the family.

His songs exude the importance of giving during Christmas and become a part of the Filipino culture. Nowadays, his image has been sensationalized on social media through memes. But contrary to the image of giving “Christmas” in Filipinos’ hearts, who would've thought that the singer behind the iconic holiday songs is a union-buster?

Is Christmas Merry?

In reality, Chan is far different from what society depicts him. To the victims of Central Azucarera de Bais (CAB) union-busting in 2004, he is the grinch who stole Christmas from over 200 workers – a labor rights violator for ignoring the call of the union to bargain collectively.

Even if his songs go along the line of lighting our Christmas trees for a brighter tomorrow, Filipino sugar farmers who work restlessly like machines had it darker than this since Chan is one of the owners of CAB, a sugar mill in Bais City, Negros Oriental. 

On January 19, 2004, 380 employees of Central Azucarera De Bais Employees Union-National Federation of Labor (CABEU-NFL) led by its union president, Pablito Saguran, sent a proposal to CAB seeking 40 pesos daily wage hike, vacation and sick leave benefits to the monthly employees, including the grant of leave benefits, and 13th-month pay to seasonal workers. Yet the management, including Chan, remained firm in their position, leaving the negotiations in a deadlock.

In March 2004, CAB responded with a counter-proposal to the effect that the “production bonus incentive and special production bonus and incentives be maintained,” however, CAB did not agree to the grant and separated Christmas bonuses instead. The union also pushed to punish CAB with unfair labor practices such as infringing on their constitutional rights to self-organization and their right to bargain collectively, and hindering the promotion of healthy and stable labor-management relations that were under the Article 247 of Labor Code. Eventually, the wage hike proposition was not approved in court but the Labor Arbiter found CAB guilty of unfair labor practices, however, it was dismissed due to lack of merit.

It has been 19 years and workers have still not been granted what they deserve even after the blatant robbing from their pockets due after CAB disagreed with the supposed collective bargaining agreement. Christmas trees are not enough to light up the homes of these workers who did not receive the fruits of their labor.

Bland Noche Buena

Chan also owns other sugar companies such as A. Chan Sugar Corporation, a sugar trader based in Makati City, and the Binalbagan-Isabela Sugar Company Inc. (BISCOM), a sugar producer in Negros Occidental with 28,725 hectares of sugarcane area. Both companies faced challenges in 2020 due to the cheap imports and diminished productivity despite the agrarian reform, small sugar farmers were not given enough funding by the government. Hence, Chan had high hopes for the Balik-Probinsya program which provides measures that can help the decongestion of urban communities, a way to persuade people to go back to their provinces, and can produce additional manpower for the said industry.

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), there are 1.85M tons of sugarcane to be harvested this year. Negros has the biggest sugarcane plantation in the country, and its economy relies on it. In 2013, there were more than 20,000 sugar mill workers, including those under CAB. Labor flexibilization is enforced in these plantations displacing regular sugar farmers. This practice allowed lower than the minimum wage of 80 to 120 pesos per day.

While Christmas is the time of giving, all Chan did was to deny the call of the union and in 2005 when the business started to drop due to the vagaries of the international market. They retrenched 37 workers, including the said union president that affected the living qualities of these workers and decreased work opportunities. Though the retrenchment of these workers may have been lawful in the eyes of the court, the tables of these workers’ families say otherwise.

There will be no food on their table during Noche Buena. No Christmas trees will brighten their houses—all thanks to the King of Christmas whose table is filled with food from the denied Christmas bonuses of the CABEU-NFL sugar workers.

Looking at it, Santa Claus might even fly to the Philippines to watch the renowned artist who sings for gift giving during Christmas; as he continues to claim that Christmas is in his heart, the tales of the sugar farmers and the labor rights of these groups remain challenged. he keeps on controlling the rightful money and violates the rights of his hardworking sugar farmers. There may be songs, memes, and videos of Jose Marie Chan’s promotion of Merry Christmas but the campaigns for the struggles of these displaced farmers continue to ring amidst the “happy” holidays.