By Tony Samson
IT HAS BEEN almost routine since early March for announcements to be made that yet another much awaited event or season, even the Tokyo Olympics, has been canceled or postponed. The news is greeted with the same mild concern as weather reports, even of an impending typhoon about to enter the country’s area of responsibility. More alarming perhaps, given the panic mode we’re in, is to hear of an event that is pushing through as scheduled, even if this is still in August.
Rites of passage like weddings, milestone birthdays, and, yes, graduations (and moving ups) have fallen under the cancellation wave. Most of these have been planned months ago with the venue reserved or trips booked, and so entail some non-refundable costs. This is in addition to crushed emotions arising from missing a milestone event. Does an invitee to a canceled wedding still have to give gifts to the couple who went ahead with a virtual wedding, at least for the guests?
Opportunity costs are relevant here, especially for big events like the Olympics, the Cannes Lion, or the UAAP. Expected venue rentals, hotel bookings, and waived tickets and corporate sponsorships form part of these costs. There are too the unquantifiable costs of wasted preparation and training for an event that has been canceled. Will the athletes that got through eliminations and kept in shape for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics still be fit to compete in 2021?
The feeling of getting left behind and losing one’s place because of the lockdown is similar to the panic of one marooned on an island. (No house is an island.)
In the 2000 movie, Castaway, our hero is played by Tom Hanks as a FedEx executive. The cargo plane for deliveries that he’s flying in crashes to the sea. He survives and is marooned in a desert island for four years. When he is finally rescued, after building a raft to sail out in, he returns home to find his fiancé already married with a family of her own. The poignant scene of a short reunion and another separation canceled the prospect of a happy ending, except for the possible offshoot of a delivered package. (Will there be a sequel?) The despair of life going on in unforeseen ways without us can be real.
True, in this case we are all stranded at home and seem to be all in the same boat.? Or are we? Cancellations do not affect everyone the same way. The opportunity costs are heavier on those who made the plans and bear the “break up” costs unless these have been insured. And then, it’s the insurers who pay up. Postponement costs even more. It means planning for the event one more time, with perhaps less enthusiasm on the part of the stakeholders.
What the pandemic has taught us is that there is a hierarchy of needs (and justifications). It seems that those who can give numbers for what the lockdown is costing us are easily trumped by others who only need the daily contagion count and mortality rate. To stop any further discussion, the latter group only has to say the dreaded phrase “second wave.” Defenders of the lockdown (and sometimes its indefinite extension) claim to defer to the specialists in science and statistical projections “if the trends continues.” In the end, they throw in the kicker — a life cannot be sacrificed for money. Giving two mutually exclusive options like life or livelihood is what economists call a false choice. Can’t you have both? The Czech Republic has opened up and requires only face masks to go through normal living.
Just to give some perspective for the numerically inclined, WHO (the same agency we hear from daily) declared that in 2015, there were 1.25 million deaths from car accidents. Of these, 13,000 was contributed by the Philippines. Did these even scarier numbers lead to banning cars from the road, even for two months, until the numbers went down?
We expect more cancellations and postponements to come.
Ironically, the two main events of life are difficult to plan anyway. Birth perhaps can be estimated, sometimes to the day if a caesarean delivery. Death on the other hand is unplanned. Neither event can be canceled or postponed when the time comes.
Tributes in social media accompanied extol front-liners in the medical and care-giving profession and occasionally the military personnel manning the checkpoints. Forgotten are those attending to the dead and their small circle of mourners… in this uncanceled event.
Tony Samson is Chairman and CEO, TOUCH xda.
