Examining foreseen hurdles in 2024

From the rapidly evolving facets of artificial intelligence (AI) to the enduring spectre of geopolitical tension, challenges, risks, and pressures continually affect how Filipinos live their lives. Navigating through these pitfalls requires a thorough understanding of their origins, manifestations, and potential ramifications as they loom large on the horizon.

According to multinational professional services brand PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in their 27th annual Global CEO, top company officials in the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region determined geopolitical conflict (40%), inflation (37%), macroeconomic volatility (29%), and cyber risks (29%) as the key threats that may affect the country in the next twelve months.

While the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are on the other side of the globe and may not affect the Philippines directly, there are still some geopolitical issues that may cause concern here in the country.

Tensions in the West Philippine Sea are still heightened after previous face-offs between the Philippine and Chinese coast guards in parts of the area. Recently, Chinese vessels used water cannons to harass Filipino boats and ships on a humanitarian mission at Bajo de Masinloc.

The country’s inflation rate, meanwhile, settled at its lowest level in 2023, slowing down from 4.1% in November to 3.9% last December based on data from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

However, the NEDA also stated that there are still several threats that may affect the country’s inflation rate in the next twelve months. The El Niño that will persist in the country until May is expected to have a negative impact on the price of goods while an uptrend in international rice prices is also anticipated to increase the price of the produce in the country.

There is cause for cautious optimism that it may not be of concern in the country, nonetheless.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the unemployment rate dipped once again in November 2023 lowering the number of Filipinos searching for jobs from 2.09 million in October to 1.83 million. In addition, the World Economic Situation and Prospects released by the UN forecasts a 5.8% economic growth for the Philippines this year compared to 5.4% in 2023. Additionally, the high interest rates offered by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas are expected to remain steady until the second half of the year when policy rates are anticipated to lower.

Furthermore, cybersecurity is expected to get better this year after placing seventh in the ASEAN region in last year’s Internet resiliency index. Not too long ago, President Ferdinand R. “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. reorganized the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and established the Office of the Deputy Director General (ODDG) for Cyber and Emerging Threats under the agency.

In addition, Mr. Marcos said in November that three bills seeking to boost cybersecurity efforts in the Philippines were on his list of priority measures: the Cybersecurity Act, which seeks to strengthen the Philippines’ cybersecurity resilience and safeguard critical information infrastructure; the Anti-Mule Act, which aims to bar money mules and fraudulent acts online; and the Online Site Blocking Act, which institutionalizes the blocking of websites displaying pirated content to protect the creative industry and consumers.

Besides PwC, the World Economic Forum (WEF) also released “Global Risks Report 2024,” where the organization defines global risk as the possibility of the occurrence of an event that would negatively impact a significant proportion of global GDP, population, or natural resources. The WEF report surveyed nearly 1,500 global risk experts across academia, business, government, the international community, and civil society about their biggest global concerns.

According to the report, two-thirds of respondents selected extreme weather (66%) as the top risk to face in the next twelve months with extreme heatwaves, drought, wildfires, and flooding anticipated all over the world.

Image from Freepik

AI-generated misinformation and disinformation (53%) and societal and/or political polarization (46%) follow in second and third place, respectively. Misinformation and disinformation, both online and in other media, spread quickly and lead to polarized communities as countries are still reeling from the progress lost during the pandemic.

“Artificial intelligence breakthroughs will radically disrupt the risk outlook for organizations with many struggling to react to threats arising from misinformation, disintermediation, and strategic miscalculation,” Carolina Klint, chief commercial officer for Europe at consultancy Marsh McLennan, which co-produced WEF’s report, was quoted as saying in a report by CNBC.

The cost-of-living crisis (42%) remains a major concern as inflation, not only in the Philippines, appears to be out of control. Cyberattacks (39%) are also seen to be a major problem globally with half of the world’s population going to the polls this year.

“An unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives and insecurity, the worsening impacts of extreme weather and economic uncertainty are causing accelerating risks — including misinformation and disinformation — to propagate,” Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum’s managing director, said in the report.

On a wider period, misinformation and disinformation, extreme weather events, societal polarization, cyber insecurity, and interstate armed conflict are the five most cited risks for the next two years. Rounding out the top 10 are lack of economic opportunity, inflation, involuntary migration, economic downturn, and pollution.

The most cited risks for the next decade, on the other hand, are extreme weather events, critical change to earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, national resource shortages, misinformation and disinformation, adverse outcomes of AI technologies, involuntary migration, cyber insecurity, social polarization, and pollution.

“These results point to a global risk landscape where economic, geopolitical, and societal vulnerabilities will continue to build. Worrying developments emerging today have the potential to become chronic global risks over the next decade,” the WEF report read.

“A multiplicity of different futures is conceivable over the next decade. Although this drives uncertainty in the short term, it also allows room for hope,” Ms. Zahidi stressed as she encouraged world leaders to take action to minimize global risks.

“Alongside global risks and the era-defining changes underway lie unique opportunities to rebuild trust, optimism, and resilience in our institutions and societies.” — Jomarc Angelo M. Corpuz