Saturday, December 20, 2008 Editorial: Pragmatism amid storm
THE crash of 2008 has somehow fueled gloomy speculations on the country's economy next year, despite the increasingly monotonous reassurances from our national leaders.
As much as the people in the countryside-like the rest of us in Northern Mindanao-want to isolate themselves from the country's economic and administrative center where all sorts of turmoil and political instability seem to endlessly spring, our interdependency is undeniable. There are no major happenstances in this country where one province, or region, can convincingly posit to say that it is not impacted in ways big or small.
So if some credible economic expert from Singapore or a reliable Washington think-thank says the Philippines is no oasis from the global trade crunch, even mid-sized countryside cities like Cagayan de Oro are affected. Local traders jump into action by tightening belt -- often at the expense of the employees. Consumers react by holding back spending. Investors adopt a wait and see attitude. There is no real spending damper today than a worldwide talk about economic crisis, especially when that talk is backed up by corpses of fallen Wall Street giants.
As such, the 2009 economic outlook could only look bleak. This should not be so, and local government units are in better position when their officials resist the urge to be carried away in this national bandwagon of cynicism. We reserve the statistics to economists, but we daresay that this pervasive talk on the current economic slump-slowdown, downturn, slide, crash and other such semantic permutations-is not at all bad when taken into an instructive context. Local folks should not take it seriously as if they live two blocks away from Wall Street. Caution, however, should not be forgotten, but it should not drive us to tighten the belt too much to point of punishment-the way corrupt money handlers in Wall Street should be punished.
This Holiday Season, we should relish the joyous, sanguine spirit of the time to go out, shop and enjoy the occasion. And then start 2009 with our own positive outlook of the economy-at least in the local scene-of our life and of our family and country's future. It is always good to start the year with positive vibes. Let us not let the crash of 2008 ruin.
