Envisioning post pandemic changes

In many ways, the global pandemic and the great lockdown is both a challenge and full of opportunities. It all depends on which side you focus your attention to. Here’s how I see what the future looks like.

Governments upgrade to digital

Government communications, disaster response, digitization are some of the things I can see changing within government from the highest to the lowest level. Some cities have already implemented the use of technology such as drones and videoconferencing.

Just imagine our legislators, LGUs or even barangays can now publicize their meetings online or even utilize video conferencing viewable by the public. Legislators/elected officials can no longer abuse their absences as they can still show up via video conferencing and even participate remotely during their required executive or legislative sessions. But all this requires further enhancement and investment in the IT and internet Infrastructure.

Moving into cashless

Businesses moving forward will have to consider having cashless payment options and not just limited to one provider but to multiple payments provider in the market. Perhaps not just business but government transactions such as IDs, taxation and the like will become a digital norm. Cars, real estate and even education will have to adapt to this shift as well.

Industry Restructuring

Different countries have handled the pandemic very differently, and some have suffered a lot more than others. As I have talked about before, global supply chains that are heavily invested into China will begin to move out as soon as they can. Outsourcing will also be affected as some of the large companies to take a more balanced approach to their location strategy, re-shore jobs, and diversify their outsourcing destinations.

Global and local tourism and hospitality industries will continue to face challenges and the online retail and logistics industries will continue to grow together with e-commerce which more and more people are turning to. It’s no longer just about cost reduction but also efficiency and resilience.

Jobs move out of cities or become remote

OFW 2.0 will become the norm a.k.a Online Filipino Workers. Aside from that LGUs as well as national government agencies have realized that limitations and dependencies of the local supply chains as currently a lot of city workers come commute from the provinces.

The Department of Information and Communications Tech-nology recently said it will work to make internet connectivity faster and cheaper after the lockdown is lifted, encouraging smaller telecommuni-cations and the like operators to connect the provinces to the internet.

New Normal Habits

Just like what happen post Spanish pandemic or post depression era, those who survived will gain a new mindset after this. Here’s a quick list:

- People will be more health conscious and conscientious.

- Since wearing masks is the norm, fashion will also follow it.

- Heightened sense of uncertainty and anxiety

- Gaining a ‘Prepper Mindset’ - considering home agriculture, wind or solar energy adaptation and a focused spending on short term essentials while setting aside money for long term preparedness.

Lastly, the outbreak has shown in the cold light of day how unqualified some, if not most, of our elected officials are in coping with such a widespread crisis. And if this culture of political entitlement, abuse of power and lack of accountability continues, the public will continue to pay -- financially, development-wise and health-wise. I hope the Filipino people will be more discerning in the next scheduled elections.

“When disaster strikes, the time to prepare has passed.”