Dubai: Christmas is here and despite the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s time to celebrate and spread the cheer around. This is the message from the Philippines Consulate General in Dubai as it released a music video on Thursday, sharing the message of faith, hope and love this holiday season.

The six-minute video features the song It’s Christmas, composed by Dubai-based Filipino composer Exequiel Nunez Jr, winner of the consulate’s Dubai Musikahan 2018 competition, and sung by The Voice Philippines finalist Josh Labing-isa.

The song speaks of the time to heal our world and to trust that our world will always be a better world for our children. “Spread love and good cheer everyone,” the Philippines Consulate captioned the video that has already garnered around 8,000 views, 20 hours after it was posted on Facebook.

The music video begins with a newscast and clips show how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. Then it shows a Filipina living in isolation for several days. As Christmas draws near, the woman becomes worried and desperate, but she soon gets cheered by family and friends. Greetings and gifts are then shared to bring happiness to everyone. The music video also features a cross-section of Filipino expats in the UAE: A professional who lost his job but is still optimistic about the future; a volunteer who overcame his fear of the deadly virus and helped in the distribution of relief material to the needy; a frontline worker; and a COVID-19 survivor who shares her wisdom that now is the time to “treasure every moment with loved ones”.

Speaking to Gulf News, Philippines Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes said: “We have a yearly tradition of greeting the Filipino community during Christmas. This year, we created a music video of an original composition by Dubai-based Filipino composer (Nuñez) and sang by Labing-isa, who is also based in Dubai and a finalist in The Voice Philippines.”

Cortes explained the overarching theme of the music video — conceptualised and produced by his 22-year-old son, Justin Cortes — is faith, hope and love. “Faith because we always wish for the best, but we do so in accordance with the will of our Creator. Hope because Christmas is here and for us Filipinos, this is a wonderful time of the year when we share the hope that things will get better in 2021. And love because despite what we have witnessed this year — the challenges and financial difficulties as many Filipinos have lost their jobs — Christmas is the time to start feeling positive. We want to spread love and good cheer not only to our kabayans (compatriots), but also to people of other nationalities,” added Cortes.