What can we do collectively as a people to ride over a probable global economic crisis?
The Netherlands, a first-world economy of 18 million population, is facing 17 percent inflation due to high prices of fuel and commodities. The government is forking up 18 billion euros to subsidize consumers and prop the economy. (The subsidy is equivalent to around P60,000 per individual). We need not wait for that kind of crisis to overrun us. Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno observed that our inflation could now reach 7 percent, the highest in years.
The Central Bank interest rate management might not be effective or quick enough to avert a crisis brought about by the high prices of food and fuel. We should anticipate the crisis before it hits us. Patterned after the Netherlands, our subsidy for micro, small, and medium enterprises, which comprise 99.5 percent of the businesses, is an urgent priority so businesses can be jump-started and more people can be hired.
After the recent meeting of the employers’ group with the President, we have not seen concrete and urgent moves on the employer or labor side to address the domestic economy. The looming crisis should spur the employers and labor sector through the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Labor and Employment to drop their guard and work together in addressing the crisis.
By dropping guard, we mean that stringent positions on labor and management relations be set aside for the moment and together share the goal to produce more revenues, with labor sharing in team productivity bonuses per peso of increased revenue earned; other issues can wait when we are over with the crisis. This is survival time for everyone and the urgency of the moment requires concrete solution and action—together.
The headwinds of recession are now ominous even in the US economy. Building up our domestic market, which constitutes most of gross domestic product, will, hopefully, prepare us and keep us afloat together.
MARVEL K. TAN,
marvelktan@yahoo.com