Remember the curse of COVID?

“Which is worse, Kuya? COVID or the impact of the Middle East conflict?”

I wanted to say: “What do I know?” and I’m sure it would be the correct answer for millions of Filipinos. As King Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes 1:18: “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”

After only a few days scanning, reading and viewing reports and analysis on the Middle East conflict, there is now a sense of impending doom globally and most certainly in the ASEAN region.

We are getting insufficient bits and pieces of information on Iran vs the US/Israel, equivalent to getting the vital signs or BP of your relative rushed to the Emergency Room. We know something is bad, but don’t know how bad.

I explained to my young friend that during COVID, we were all taken by surprise. We thought that quarantine would be the standard one week, then it became two weeks/15 days, then turned into “Lockdowns” that turned into a gloomy state of helplessness over two years.

During all that, we learned that our most valuable asset was our health or life. Staying alive and uninfected was the single solitary goal. We learned to eat lean and little, given the level of difficulty involved in getting supplies. No pass – No go.

On the bright side, our material assets were preserved, our money in the banks stayed secured which caused the phenomena of “Revenge Buying,” our cars remained in the garage, and your jewelries in the cabinets.

We all lost our mobility and freedom of movement. Some lost loved ones. Some lost their jobs. We all learned to adjust and adopt and were grateful to be alive while “thousands were dying by our sides.”

Even if momentary, we rediscovered what mattered most: Life. COVID was a reset for many, but not irreversible collapse.

In comparison, the on-going Middle East Conflict is beginning to feel like the fear and anxiety you experience when going on a roller coaster ride. Only the operator, in this case the US-Israel is in control of events challenged by a seemingly underestimated opponent, Iran.

We comfort ourselves with the hope that the Middle East conflict will go the way the Russia-Ukraine war has, turned into a backyard conflict instead of a global conflagration. 

We recall our needless panic over the disruption of fuel and grain supplies that eventually normalized through sourcing and redistribution etc. Maybe, just maybe, the Middle East conflict will be four weeks and not a four year war. Or maybe not.

In the Philippines, the big scare for many is the predicted 20 percent increase in the price of fuel within the next two weeks or next month as the case may be. But no one seems to be talking or want to talk about how the cascade or trickle-down effect will hit residential and commercial electricity cost.

Anything requiring energy or electricity will go up and I dread that they will all be higher than the 20 percent for fuel. Mass transportation: planes, boats, buses even trains and especially cargo trucks and vans will be hit hard.

Right now, people are only talking about Metro Manila while people in the provinces are oblivious to the energy disruption and inflation coming their way. The last time something like this happened, people experienced daily or weekly brownout and blackouts. 

Between Electricity and transport, inflation will hurt tourism and many people who’ve borrowed and invested in tourism post COVID will be at a loss how to recover. That will surely be followed by layoffs.  

In a constricted or limited economy that barely grew last year, only those who are too big to fall will survive and as we have learned in past disasters, the small ones start to fall like flies.

Instead of comparing or predicting what will be worse, COVID or the Middle East disaster, what we should all be doing is reviewing our experience and lessons that helped all of us to survive COVID’s lockdown curse.

We need to plan on how to “Future proof” our families, businesses, communities from the economic disasters that can hit us if the Middle East conflict turns into an all-out war. Now more than ever we all need “Business continuity” programs or strategies.

If that can’t stop the sky from falling, then better have an “Exit plan” for your employees such as teaching them the Do’s and Don’ts for surviving a major economic meltdown. This is not a doom and gloom piece; it is a call to everyone to take defensive positions!

The one thing we all could not do was come together as a “community.” Now would be a good time to refresh or reboot our social, family even business relations and familiarize each other on who’s got your back and who has what, or can do what.

Unlike during COVID, being isolated in a serious economic downturn will not work well for individuals and their families. We face this together to stand strong! Allow me to emphasize this last point from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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