Biz sector sees 2021 a bad year; labor bares hopeful perspective

BACOLOD. Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer Frank Carbon (left) and General Alliance of Workers Associations secretary-general Wennien Sancho (right). (File photo)
BACOLOD. Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive officer Frank Carbon (left) and General Alliance of Workers Associations secretary-general Wennien Sancho (right). (File photo)

FOR the local business sector, 2021 will not be as bad as 2020, nonetheless, is still bad.

Frank Carbon, chief executive officer of Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI), said the community, in general, is still not at ease.

Carbon said there is no vaccine yet and the much more virulent strain of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) may find the country's shores.

"The much-vaunted billion pesos financial stimulus fund is still in limbo," he said, adding that there's a lack of a cohesive health and economic recovery plan at the regional level.

The business leader further said that all of these put together may deter the urge of the populace to socialize and spend.

Also, it will increase the wariness of businessmen to reopen and reinvest, Carbon said.

The confidence of the business sector in the economy, at this time, is at its lowest level, he lamented, adding that "we will take more risks."

As the new year starts, the local business group sees no full economic recovery yet this 2021. Rather, still a year to survive for the sector.

Its official said that "if we want to survive 2021, we have to keep afloat hoping that the billion pesos stimulus fund will find our head above water when it reaches our ocean."

Carbon stressed that "we have to find rivers and creeks of funds to feed our ocean of survival."

Meanwhile, the labor sector has bared a hopeful perspective for 2021.

Wennie Sancho, secretary-general of the General Alliance of Workers Associations (Gawa), said that in the midst of struggle, Filipinos have the power in solidarity, to tell others that there's hope, despite pandemic and economic recession.

Sancho, also the labor representative to the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) in Western Visayas, said the heart sickens and the mind grows faint in contemplation of all these human miseries and sufferings.

"But our hope is in God, who has the power to prevail over all the chaos and set a limit to all tragedies and restore the conditions needed for human life and prosperity," he added.

The labor leader pointed out that amid the massive unemployment, the workers had begun to develop a new perspective and creative desire to impose upon themselves the power to release their own creativity to pursue their quest for emancipation with faith and passion.

Workers, he said, have grown the passion to inspire and the aspiration to champion the cause of the poor toiling masses.

Sancho expressed optimism that this new perspective motivates the workers to be free and to have a new life that shall blossom out of their subjugation.

"The worker is no longer the uncomplaining silent sufferer, bearing as he could his self-appointed punishment," he said, stressing that those who have suffered most now have found within themselves the strength to assert their rights and dignity.

Gawa believed that as workers learn to love and value their work, a sense of self-fulfillment had changed their concept about work.

For the labor group, nothing is more rewarding than honest work done--it is dignified and honorable. But to work to gain endless power and wealth is not a virtue, such work is a medication of addiction for wealth that has grown out of insecurity.

Sancho urged workers to be generous in sharing their time and talents with others, particularly the poor and the needy.

He stressed that "we should not delay the good things we ought to do for others. Millions of people today are in pain of all kinds, poverty, hunger and brokenheartedness."

"Good deeds will never die, they will live in the hearts of many generations," Sancho said, adding that the breaking of the new dawn of hope comes in the New Year.

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