IT’S one of those times again when the country is swarming with prophecies and forecasts. Because the country has to import rice, the media are awash with dire talk about a food crisis lasting up to 2010. Because crude oil has gone beyond $100 a barrel, there is talk of terrorists winning the war on terror. And because the US economy has slowed down, there is talk of a global recession.

But it is not as if only the doomsayers have the floor. As many, if not more, people are holding on to the view that the pains of the day are just a blip on the screen. The long boom is still with us. There is no food crisis, just a problem of distribution. High crude prices are just as much a result of the weak US dollar. While the US economy is probably already in recession, growth in other countries—particularly China and India—will prevent the rest of the world from catching a cold. 

If this thing were just a contest of analysis, we can just watch and wait for one side to be proved right. But here in our country, it is a contest between two kinds of prophets who seek to have sway over public policy. At one end are the prophets of doom, who make their living from predicting ever-worsening catastrophe for the country. At the other are the prophets of boom, who perpetually foresee a brighter future on the horizon.

If they were merely the prophets of cults, we could safely leave them in the wilderness. In fact, the busiest prophets of the day preach in our legislature, media and think tanks; and they influence public policy in a definite way.

Because of his ominous vision, the doomsayer spreads a lot of anxiety and unhappiness, sometimes even panic. He sees the problems of the hour in apocalyptic terms. To him, things cannot improve for the better because the whole country is weak, the government is hopeless, leadership is wanting. And Filipinos are helpless. The only hope for the better he sees is in his taking the helm.

In contrast, the boomsayer is more sunny in disposition. In college, he was probably a cheerleader. In difficult times, he tries to lift our spirits up with forecasts of a robust economy and social progress. In better times, he’s in seventh heaven. On current problems, he would say they are temporary, there will be no recession and the boom will be back before we know it.

Among the country’s economists, Dr. Bernardo Villegas of the University of Asia and the Pacific was the quintessential prophet of boom. He could see the dawn when everyone else could just see the dark. In contrast, the economists of the UP School of Economics have been uniformly prophets of doom. Even in times of growth of the Philippine economy—such as during the time of President Ramos and now under President Arroyo—they persist in seeing busts around the corner.

If we were asked to entertain either prophet into our homes, most of us would surely prefer the prophet of boom. Besides his being the more cheerful talker, should his forecast prove correct, everyone profits. And should his predictions prove false, we assume that we have nothing to lose, anyway.

The doomsayer seems a little mean-spirited. Since he wants to be proved right, he must, therefore, pray and hope for the collapse of things around him. This is the heart of my worry about the opposition in the country today. Its prophets appear to be praying that the President fails so they can win the next elections. They not only refuse to help; they insist on standing in the way.

But false prophecies of boom can also do harm. The current credit crisis in the United States has arisen from policies of boom during the time of Alan Greenspan in the Federal Reserve. Closer to home, we have a vivid example of optimism gone bust in the 1997 Asian financial crisis that laid flat Asian economies, including our own. The crisis was fueled by easy money, loose controls and poor corporate governance. When the crisis hit, there was nowhere for anyone to hide. Asia went into a tailspin, from which it has only recently recovered. 

The cautionary lesson here is that it is always a mistake to manage an economy by prophecy or prediction. It must be managed by sound and expert analysis. Forecasting results is essential to management and leadership. But it must be based on a study of cause and effect. It isn’t just determined by the forecaster’s disposition or self-interest.

In his book on the harmfulness of prophecy Futurehype, Max Dublin contends that the task of statesmanship is not to foresee the future and manage it, but to bring about the best in people in order for them to act responsibly in the present with consistency, discipline and dedication.

Responsible and generous behavior in the present has nothing to do with ideology. China, Japan, India and Australia—which have political cultures geared toward making their people act responsibly—are on different sides of the political spectrum, some leaning to the Left, others to the Right. It is the coherence of their cultures, not abandonment to grand schemes for the future, that propels them forward.

The Philippines is not the only country in the world that has had to endure rising food prices. Even in the cornucopia called America, consumers have been complaining how much harder it has become for them to stretch their household budgets.

About a week ago Manuel L. Quezon III sent me two documents penned by Jun Lozada, “Telling the Truth” and “My Reflections on my 2nd Month of Calvary.”

As a way to compensate for its lack of capital, the Philippines, a major labor-surplus economy, has found ways to ride the crest of the ongoing global outsourcing revolution.

Mirror Image: A challenge to responsible journalism

I was reading a major broadsheet over the weekend when the subhead of a story caught my eye.  The story appeared in the lifestyle section and related the relationship of a Filipina with a famous but already departed personality in a European city several decades back.

Market Files: Oil, rice nightmare

With the looming price rises in oil and other products bandied about for the next six weeks, as well as the lengthening queues of buyers of government rice, the country’s poor may have to come up with novel ways of coping with the upward spiral of prices of most commodities.

The Way Forward: A choice of prophets

IT’S one of those times again when the country is swarming with prophecies and forecasts. Because the country has to import rice, the media are awash with dire talk about a food crisis lasting up to 2010.

Sway: Business perils

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain ruled the world. It took the lead in global exploration and colonial expansion as it opened trade routes across the seas and established new territories all over, including Asia and the Americas.