Instead of sleighs and reindeers, door-to-door delivery service providers use cargo trucks and utility vans while Christmas elves are substituted with burly men delivering heavy packages called Balikbayan boxes sent between Filipino relatives at home and abroad.

In Vancouver, transporting Balikbayan boxes has become a lucrative business particularly during Christmas which symbolizes a season of cheer and plenty for every Filipino family.

The box shipped from Canada travels around 13,200 kilometres before it reaches its destination in a span of six weeks.

A Balikbayan Box, literally means returnee’s box and is a cardboard box containing novelty items brought by or sent by a Filipino returning to the Philippines from a foreign country.

Filipino firm Umac Express Cargo has already expanded its branches in Canada providing delivery services in Vancouver, Toronto, Winnnipeg and Alberta.

Umac’s Vancouver branch has offered door-to-door services since 2003 distributing Balikbayan boxes all around Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao in the Philippines.

“We have been delivering balikbayan boxes from all over the country,” Theresa Baguisa, 41, manager of Umac-Vancouver branch told the Asian Pacific Post.

“It’s a different kind of business that requires integrity to gain the trust of clients.”
Just like other several “Santa Clauses” in Vancouver, Baguisa and her husband, Larry ask recipients to be photographed while receiving the Balikbayan boxes to confirm receipt.

“You can just imagine the excitement once they saw the balikbayan boxes — delivered right at their doorsteps — coming from their loved ones in Vancouver,” says Baguisa.

“We must, literally, deliver the box just in time that our client needs it,” adds Baguisa who maintains an office in Marikina City, Philippines. The company name Umac means Uncle Mac named after Teodoro Carino Jr., the late chair of the Forex Family of Companies.

Vancouver residents, Manuel and Josephina Galvez were among those Filipinos that painstakingly packed “treasure troves” of imported canned goods, assorted candies and chocolates with toys, shoes, pants and shirts into the Balikbayan box they have sent for their grandchildren living in Olongapo City, Philippines.

“I’m sure my children, grand children and even those grown ups would surely enjoy all we have sent this Christmas,” says Manuel, a former US Naval base worker who migrated Canada after the American military base closed in 1992. Josephina, a former Catholic school teacher, said that she also packed toiletries such as soap, body wash, toothpaste, household and kitchen stuffs and other personal items which are either hard to find in the Philippines or sold cheaper in Vancouver.

“Most of the items were bought in shopping malls during yearly sales,” says Josephina.
“You can be sure that another Balikbayan box will be filled up after the scheduled ‘boxing day’ this December 26.” Last year Umac shipped around 8,000 balikbayan boxes from its
Vancouver branch alone and as the number of immigrants and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) grow in Vancouver, more Balikbayan boxes will surely be sent to the Philippines.