Things to be thankful for

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With most engagements don before the Holiday break, one finally had time to step back and – aside from indulging in guilt-free “idleness” – to look for things to be thankful for in 2020.

​What on earth, you may ask, could one be thankful for in the year of this pandemic? Well, you evaded COVID-19 and you’re alive, for one thing. Feel good already?​But there really is much more to be thankful for, in spite of everything. We learned to cope with adversity, to discipline ourselves, to find more time with family. We learned to do things without leaving the comfort and safety of home.

Meetings that would have required driving or commuting to office or elsewhere were made possible via zoom or some other online application. We saved a lot of time for other things. We saved on gas. And meals. For instance, in a series of zoom meetings with more than a hundred participants, I realized that we were collectively saving millions by not having had to fly in from all over the country, book ourselves in a hotel and pay for the venue, the meals and all the other related expenses.

Resource speakers didn’t have to fly in and get booked as well. Granted, it took a while to get used to online conferences minus the face-to-face socializing, but we learned to get things done. In the end, we may have gotten smarter and more efficient. The “new normal” may not be all that bad, and the “next normal” will be even better.

Unfortunately, it was bad news for airlines, Grab services and taxis, hotels, restaurants and malls, but they are finding new ways to do business in order to survive. Most of them will be back with a vengeance.

A lot of other businesses closed shop, but everyone, all of a sudden, has set up a home-based business enterprise. Now we can order practically anything we need via the internet. The village economy has taken over, and we have a whole new population of budding home-based entrepreneurs.

You need fresh-baked bread? Message the friendly neighborhood baker. A home-cooked meal? No problem. It’s  minutes away. Face masks? Face shields? Alcohol? Someone nearby is selling the stuff. Bad news for the taxman, because you can’t (shouldn’t?) tax home-based businesses trying to survive during the pandemic. But thank God, really, that we’ve found better things to do with our time.

Here in Negros, we have much to be thankful for. Sugar industry workers remained employed through most of the year, and sugar prices remained steady We didn’t get the severe weather disturbances that hit various parts of the country. Milling was largely unimpeded and food security did not become a serious problem.

Rice farmers, however, suffered from a drop in palay prices due to importation, but the agriculture sector generally stood firm. Special thanks to the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, with the active engagement of the private sector, for their efforts to promote diversification, productivity improvement and food security. We are seeing significant increases in area devoted to crops such as adlai, upland rice intercropped with sugarcane, bananas, coffee and cacao. Negros agriculture has bright prospects overall.

Lest we forget, local governments rose to the occasion and performed heroically in the fight against COVID-19 in spite of resource constraints and the lack of experience in dealing with a pandemic. We saw the “adapt and innovate” mindset adopted by the mayors of Himamaylan and Sipalay with their local teams, as they went through a leadership development course over five months, together with ten other cities throughout the country.

True, 2020 was not a good year for local officials and frontliners, but they coped well despite the challenges. Their stories will hopefully be told for everyone to learn from and appreciate.

And the frontliners – in the hospitals, the checkpoints and isolation facilities; the health workers in the field, the service providers and the reporters who kept us abreast of the news. What else can we say? Only a resounding “thank you!”

Let me end by sharing this message which I posted on Facebook just before the end of 2020: “Let’s thank the Lord for all the blessings we had in spite of the pandemic: Life, love, good friends, a sense of purpose, the good things done, the right decisions made, the mistakes we learned from, and our faith that keeps us hopeful for better things to come. Let’s pray for those who lost their loved ones or their livelihoods, and pray too for the healing of the Earth as fervently as we pray for the end of COVID.

“We pray for sanity and decency to return to our bedeviled country and for our people to realize that the promise of change will not come unless it begins with ourselves. Thank you to all who made my own life meaningful and those who made life better for others. May the blessings pour on you in 2021. Happy new year!”​