ON ENRICHING THE CURRENCY OF LIFE

With hundreds of companies worldwide experiencing a shattering paradigm shift due to the impacts of a global pandemic, top business leaders struggle to balance goodwill and survival—supporting frontliners and employees while attempting to run businesses as usual—the situation in the Philippines is no different

- PIPO GONZALES

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) ravages nations and leaves its devastating effects, the world races against time to find effective ways of mitigating a contagion that has afflicted hundreds of thousands. Governments enforced nationwide quarantines and travel bans to stall the spread of the disease in anticipation of a cure. Though effective up to a certain point, these solutions have, however, halted many business operations and undermined industries that are heavily reliant on human interaction. While this is first and foremost a health crisis, the domino effect adds one more challenge after another and has given birth to yet another consequential conundrum—as stocks plummet and economies cut back, thought leaders foresee a potential global recession.

As early as late March, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports that the world’s 500 richest people have lost around $1.3 trillion—only a few months since the onset of the infections. In a video discussion organized by TED, a non-profit organization that hosts talks and online communities, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates addressed the issue, “It is really tragic that the economic effects of this are very dramatic. Nothing like this has ever happened to the economy in our lifetimes. But money, you know bringing the economy back and doing money, that’s more of a reversible thing than bringing people back to life. And so we’re going to take the pain in the economic dimension — huge pain — in order to minimize the pain in the disease and death dimension.”