Capitalizing on business strengths, adaptive measures during the pandemic

THE world is no stranger to disease outbreaks. Governments have borne the brunt of stemming the spread of communicable diseases throughout the years. Some of the most disastrous outbreaks that have obliterated huge portions of the world’s population include the Bubonic Plague, the Asian Flu and the Spanish Flu, the last one claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. As the Philippine government continues to wage war against an invisible enemy and to quell the spread of the Covid-19 virus through lockdowns and travel restrictions, the economic impact of the pandemic has left many businesses on the brink of shutting down operations.

In the Philippines, economic projections remain bleak. According to revised estimates of the National Accounts of the Philippines as reported by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the Philippine economy was projected to have sustained economic blows in 2020 due to the impacts of the pandemic. The country’s gross domestic product was estimated to have contracted by 9.6 percent year-on-year from earlier estimates of -9.5 percent. In another report prepared by HIS Markit, a financial services company, it was detailed that while many economic experts see 2021 as a year of recovery for most markets, the effects of the pandemic, along with the imposition of safety restrictions, will likely be more apparent than real. The sharp rise in Covid-19 cases across the country is seen most likely to account for a more constrained pace of economic recovery in the short term. Although experts consider the positive growth recorded during the last half of the year, the escalating incidences of Covid-19 cases and the imposition of another round of enhanced community quarantine measures in Metro Manila and nearby strategic locations continue to dampen economic outlook this year.