To say – like some "optimists" claim – that the renewed tensions in the Middle East won't directly affect Filipinos is bordering on stupidity, if not insanity.
Notwithstanding concerns about the current U.S. military installations here in the Philippines that can theoretically be targeted in case the war in Iran escalates, the fact is that the ordinary Filipino will still feel the impact of a conflict thousands of kilometers away.
And it's going to hit the ordinary Filipino in the stomach, where it hurts the most.
Already, there are projections that the price of oil products could zoom by up to P10 per liter if tensions in the Middle East continue. (And it doesn't help that our own Secretary of Energy have dismissed such projections as "misleading" as she continued to parrot out the Marcos administration's line that the Philippines has enough fuel stocks to weather the crisis.)
That projection has thrown almost all sectors into panic. Companies and local governments are already implementing fuel-saving measures that could also potentially impact our productivity.
High prices of fuel could (and would) lead to a domino effect of high costs of basic goods and commodities, not to mention a possible slowdown of economic activity as high prices drive businesses and ordinary people into "tipid" mode.
And we haven't even started yet on the effect of the war on our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who will be forced to return home due to the crisis.
This meant the loss of the much-needed dollars in OFW remittances that have been the backbone of our economy, not to mention the thousands of extra mouths that have to be taken care of in an already tottering economy.
And what has the Marcos administration done about the potential economic crisis? Nothing more than banal assurances that the Philippines is resilient, that it can weather the Middle East crisis, that those projections of potential impacts of the war are nothing more than exaggerations and panic-mongering.
We are not panic-mongering here, Mr. President – we're just being realistic.
And instead of painting a rosy picture of Philippine resiliency, what the government should do is to prepare the Filipinos to ensure that we can, indeed, weather the worst of this newest episode of global instability.
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