Big hopes, no predictions

Now that the Christmas season is almost over, it is time to move on and start looking forward to 2022, the coming New Year. I have decided to forego making predictions since I made some incredibly major errors in some predictions for the past year 2021. Instead I will enumerate specific topics from where I think the most important stories of 2022 will emerge.

Let me, however, think back to the beginning of this year and talk about my biggest errors in predictions. The first was the pandemic because at the beginning of the year there were many analyses and speculations about the coming end of the pandemic. If I remember correctly, I also assumed that it would all end by the following year, i.e., 2022 and maybe even during the first quarter. That certainly will not happen.

I do not know of anyone who predicted the coming onslaught of the Omicron, the new virus. Instead of a new, pandemic-free world, we have new pandemic surges. I just read that France is having more than one hundred thousand new cases a day. China is now in a virtual lockdown.

The new predictions have gone the opposite way. There are those who are saying that the pandemic will be with us permanently. I hope that this is not true; but, as I said, I have decided to stop making predictions.

The next major wrong prediction I made was about Philippine politics. I was absolutely sure that Sara Duterte would run for president. She was leading in all the surveys and she had the potential backing of the resources of the Duterte administration. I thought accepting Bong Go as her vice president would be a small price to pay in exchange for becoming the next president.

At that time there was no major opponent on the horizon. Even Leni Robredo was so low in the surveys that there was serious doubts about her agreeing to run for president.

When doubts began circulating about Sara Duterte running for president, my conclusion was her alternative was to run for reelection as mayor of Davao City.  As mayor she would have some real powers and her own personal bailiwick. As vice president she would have no real powers like previous vice presidents and be at the political mercy of the incumbent president.

We have an incumbent administration that has no succession plan, not even its own presidential candidate, which is almost unknown in Philippine politics. Incumbent presidents either run for reelection or have a candidate they have personally chosen. This was the case with Cory and FVR; Ramos and De Venecia; Noynoy and Mar Roxas. I am not sure about Macapagal-Arroyo’s chosen candidate. Even if President Duterte endorses another candidate, it will have to be a candidate who is already running and not his personal candidate chosen by him, like his daughter or Bong Go.

I am still not clear how these political developments came about. I can only surmise that these were influenced by personal factors and just logical political decisions. However, I have become very wary about making predictions that can be influenced by personal and emotional factors.

There were, however, some unexpected good news that made us proud to be Filipinos. There was the victory of Hidilyn Diaz in weightlifting in the Tokyo Olympics. It was the first Olympic gold medal for the Philippines. It was an achievement that I thought would never come in my lifetime. Then, of course, there was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Ressa. It was historic and uplifting for all Filipinos. It will be an event that future generations will appreciate more, as soon as politics becomes less a factor in judging this iconic moment.

These unpredictable events in 2021 have made me decide not to make predictions for 2022.

There are some stories that I will be following closely this coming year. First is the pandemic. I have become more pessimistic and am even contemplating that there may be no end to the pandemic. At the beginning of 2021, there was a sense of optimism. Then came the Omicron variant and our world turned topsy-turvy. How many more unknown variants are there lurking in our future? I have become cynical even about our epidemiologists who are reassuring us that after a certain rate of vaccination, the virus will start losing effect. I look at countries like China, UK and France which are supposedly countries with the highest vaccination rates in the world. These countries are still struggling with surges and have among the highest daily infection rates in the world.

In terms of Philippine politics I am not making any predictions because I remember we are nearing the months before elections when trends in past elections changed dramatically. Someone once told me that it is only after the Christmas season that Filipinos begin thinking about elections seriously and start finalizing their choices. Anyway, I am sure that there will be surprises in these coming elections.

One of the political events that observers are waiting for is the final decision of President Duterte. Most are expecting him to endorse Marcos Jr. However, after hinting that Marcos Jr. is a cocaine addict and saying he is weak, a spoiled child and a scion of “kawatans,” I find this political turnaround as almost impossible; but then I have been wrong before.

I hope and pray that 2022 will be a year of hopeful and miraculous change and the Filipino people will finally find peace and the leaders that will usher in an era of honest governance, human rights and rule of law.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

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