Looking forward to 2019

I would like to greet our readers Merry Christmas and a wonderful, prosperous brand new year ahead. I was saving my greetings to come out in my Tuesday column this week which happens to be on the 25th, but I forgot that there is usually no newspaper issue on Christmas Day.

Since we are still in the later part of the holiday season, allow me to give attention to the lighter topic about what I’m looking forward to next year. Ah, well, not really light but maybe a little lighter than the usual mood for sharing opinion.

First, I’m looking forward to the 100th anniversary celebration of The FREEMAN on February 22. Earlier this month, I and my fellow columnists of this paper met with our chairman Jose “Sir Dodong” Gullas, our president Miguel Belmonte, and our vice chairman John Vicente Gullas. We discussed about the upcoming milestone anniversary of the paper; its ups and downs, on how it managed to overcome the challenges of the times, including the Marcos dictatorship, to remain “fair and fearless” or should I say, fearless but fair, and continues to thrive to this day of the digital age.

An improved economic outlook is another thing to look forward to this 2019. Inflationary pressures, including the movement of gasoline prices, are expected to taper off next year with continuous monetary adjustments made by the country’s economic managers.

Election year is also expected to cause an uptick in economic activity as many politicians (I’m not saying all, but maybe most) will spend copious amounts of cash (they have carted from “various” and most likely dubious sources) to woo voters who will readily sell their votes in exchange for a day or two’s gain and, of course, more long-term suffering.

One more very important thing I really hope to happen in the coming year is a steep decline if not a halt to extrajudicial killings and alleged police planting of evidence and other shortcuts just to score an accomplishment and project an unrelenting drug war; a war that has actually clogged up the courts but failed to significantly curtail supply and demand.

A passage in the Gospel reading last December 16 is a good reminder to our police and military in this time of darkened paths supposedly in the name of law and order: “Soldiers also asked him (John the Baptist), ‘And what is it that we should do?’ He told them, ‘Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.” (Luke 3:14)

On a personal note, I’m looking forward to earn my master’s degree in applied art and design from Shu-Te University in Taiwan next year. Shu-Te has forged a partnership with the UP Cebu to bring Shu-Te’s professors here under the Master of Arts in Applied Art and Design (MAAAD) program. Classes started last year and are held at the UP Cebu SRP campus and its Fablab facility in the Lahug campus.

If I may intrude for a few more words about this topic here, a day after Christmas I was immediately back at my study desk at home writing my thesis proposal whose original deadline was moved to yesterday. Anyone who has gone through thesis writing knows that probably the harder part of the process is how to keep yourself from getting dazed (buyong) and nauseated from constantly reviewing chapters of your own writing. So I look forward to get this done and over with and present my findings before a panel of reviewers at the Shu-Te campus in Kaohsiung this June.

My thesis is about designing sustainable and localized co-working spaces using green design and user-centered design methods. I chose to do this study because I realized that co-working spaces are not just for digital nomads and startups anymore. In a digital economy that is increasingly focused on collaboration and innovation, traditional professionals like lawyers must also adjust to the demands of the times by being constantly in touch with the makerspace culture and the collaboration and innovation ecosystem fast emerging in our midst.

Cebu’s co-working space and learning ecosystem is thriving and proof of that is the opening of new co-working spaces in the city with international franchises. Another proof is the Cebu City public library which is always filled with students and digital nomads since the city government decided this year to open it 24/7.