Challenging days ahead

It’s the day after Christmas. In five days, we shall welcome the New Year.

For many Filipinos, this is usually the time to look back at the past 12 months to review the significant events in their life during that period. Some of them would be worth remembering, while others would be better off obliterated in their minds.

Based on surveys made in previous years, majority of Filipinos always look to the New Year with optimism. Regardless how bad things may have been in the past year, they keep their fingers crossed that the future would be better. That positive outlook has remained strong despite several natural and man-made calamities that had hit the country in recent years. Indeed, hope springs eternal.

As things stand at present, there are two challenges the country may have to contend with in 2024, namely, the coming of El Niño and the possible spread of a COVID-19 variant.

The Department of Science and Technology had forecast that El Niño, a natural phenomenon that results in a spike in temperatures on land and in the oceans, was expected to hit the country soon and may last until April 2024 at least.

But knowing how fickle Mother Nature can be, that prediction is not something we can hold on to with confidence. The earth’s climate follows its own timeline.

The long dry spell could wreak havoc on the country’s already poor rice production and, as a result, may compel the government to heavily import the food staple that Filipinos cannot live without.

This grim prospect had prompted President Marcos to order national and local government offices concerned to implement all necessary and proper measures to mitigate the adverse effects of El Niño.

With El Niño still to happen and the prices of basic commodities already on the high side and the reduction of inflation to manageable levels still a work in progress, its coming would undoubtedly make life tougher for majority of Filipinos, especially those in the D and E sectors.

Then there is the threat of the new COVID-19 subvariant JN1 finding its way to the Philippines from neighboring countries that have detected its presence in their areas.

Although some Filipinos had been reported to have been infected by it, the Department of Health (DOH) does not think it is a cause for alarm as to require the public to comply with the protocols the government imposed in 2020 when COVID-19 was at its worst.

The DOH, in effect, is saying, “Relax, there’s nothing to worry about that variant, folks.”

That’s cold comfort in light of the way the past administration initially treated COVID-19 as a minor health issue.

Recall that in the latter part of 2019, when the virus was reported to have spread from its breeding ground in Wuhan, China, the government refused to adopt measures to ensure that the Chinese tourists coming to the country did not bring with them that virus.

Then President Duterte turned down suggestions by health experts to follow the lead of other countries in requiring Chinese nationals entering their borders to undergo certain tests or follow quarantine procedures.

He did not want to hurt the feelings of his supposedly close friend and ally, Communist Party Secretary General Xi Jinping, who may take offense at the Philippines’ treating his countrymen as potential carriers of the virus.

It was only in March 2020, when the virus had practically infected the whole country and COVID-19-related deaths could no longer be treated as “normal” that Duterte ordered the implementation of strict quarantine measures to prevent it from further spreading.

That slavish devotion to China resulted in the closure of thousands of businesses, loss of millions of jobs and incurrence of billions of pesos in debt to mitigate the adverse economic effects of the pandemic, which, to date, are still being felt.

Hopefully, there will be no repeat of the disastrous COVID-19 experience we went through. But as the saying goes, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”