It’s getting more depressing to read the newspapers and watch television nowadays. The hoary stories of crime in our society and mischief in government are bearable enough; they get me mad more than depressed. But it’s something else to read the stories of colossal catastrophes, of people dying in the thousands, of violence in conflict areas, of the sad, gaunt faces of people living in hunger and of the victims of war.

You would think these graphic stories of tragedy are just about the limit, but just as depressing for me these days are the statistical reports and charts of the prices of food and crude oil. It’s just numbers, you say, but they are depressing as hell.

When crude oil hit $133 per barrel the other day, I felt my blood pressure jump a notch. When the price per kilo of rice went over P50 this week—and in Mindanao at that—I could not read on. 

How on earth do we cope with such intolerable prices for two things that are so essential to our lives today? How do we preserve stability in our country and in the world with millions unable to buy their daily staples? How can we restore balance in the world economy when so many things have clearly been unhinged from their moorings?

If ever there was a time when my faith in markets got badly shaken, it is now. The situation is maddening because it’s not the dynamics of supply and demand that is driving the prices of food and oil upward; it’s the speculation of fund managers in oil and commodity futures. Oh yes, China and India need lots of oil for their modernization drives, but the harder reality is that vast amounts of money in the West—arising from the weakened dollar and low interest rates—are looking for things to invest on, and they have found these in oil and commodity futures. Large investment funds started speculating earlier this year on grains after noticing a decline in stocks, and that soon enough drove food prices to record levels. The same thing has also happened in the case of crude-oil prices, as investments in crude-oil futures have driven prices to their unheard-of levels today.

Analysts hold out the hope to us that this could all be just a bubble. Sooner or later, they said, prices will begin to come down as interest rates start to go up again. I hope so. But so far the only easing I’ve seen is crude going down a teeny-weeny bit to $127 per barrel. That’s still a stratosphere away from the $60 per barrel we saw last year.

Something tells me there’s no returning anymore to what we used to think of as normal. High food and oil prices are here to stay. Major adjustments and changes are taking place in the world economy today, and there is no going back to the way things were a few months ago. Prayer won’t do the trick. There are no easy answers to be found. The problems and crises feed into one another. Wherever you turn to the problems seem to be bigger than they were a while ago.

In times like this, there are those who turn to doomsaying, to forecasting more dire things to come. Some say that crude oil will hit $200 per barrel soon. Others aver that the food emergency will result in widespread riots and famine around the world.

The question is what can really be done to address the situation today.

I find some consolation and hope in what the historian Barbara Tuchman has written so memorably and perceptively about times of great crises in history: “I am not persuaded, despite the signs, that the end is necessarily doom. The doomsayers work by extrapolation; they take a trend and extend it, forgetting that the doom factor sooner or later generates a coping mechanism. I have a rule for this situation, too, which is absolute: You cannot extrapolate any series in which the human element intrudes; history, that is, the human narrative, never follows, and will always fool, the scientific curve. I cannot tell you what twists it will take, but I expect that, like our ancestors, we, too, will muddle through.”

The coping mechanism for our present emergency can come in many forms.

It could come from the global realization and resolve to face up to the high price of oil, and to finally be more frugal in its use and to develop alternative and renewable sources of energy. If there is no returning to affordable oil prices, there should also be no staying with the level of consumption of oil as we now know it. Under stress, sooner or later, the coping mechanism will develop the alternatives that will make oil less necessary and more affordable.

It could come from the renewed interest around the world in agriculture and food production that has arisen because of the food emergency. For years, agriculture had been relegated to the sidelines because of the low prices being paid for its products; farmers and their children were deserting the land in droves. Now, with food prices at historic highs and certain to stay high, we can use this period to create a veritable revolution in agriculture and food production. Governments can commit themselves again to programs to become more self-sufficient or as close to self-sufficient as possible. The resulting productivity should eventually have a balancing effect on the emergency.

At a certain point, the coping mechanism will find the balance that can enable people and nations to move forward: prices that are high enough to encourage and keep producers in their jobs, and prices that are affordable enough to ensure that the consumers do not die or vanish.

Far from reducing us to helplessness, the twin crises of food and oil could just as easily summon the best from us. They could be cathartic for our country. What does not kill us will make us stronger.

AS it turns out, last weekend’s P1.50 jump in the prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene was just the opening salvo in a far more disastrous assault on our collective pockets. The oil companies announced earlier this week that they plan to raise their retail prices by as much as P11 per liter before the month is over.

It’s been two weeks since David Cook won American Idol. Articles about the win are beginning to be filed away now. The new talk is how fast his songs are climbing the charts, plus real important stuff like, you know, who he’s dating and will they go out again. But this talent show and recent Idol winner signify more than just the surface celebrity fluff, entertainment, money and ratings.

Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commissioner Jesus Martinez, Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri and Supreme Court Associate Justice Renato Corona were batch mates at the Ateneo de Manila High School (ADMHS).

Perfecto R. Yasay Jr.: Is the SEC inutile?

I read recently in one of the news dailies the challenge made by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement its order stopping the counting of proxies in favor of the Lopez group during the annual stockholders’ meeting of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) held on May 27.

Market Files: Napocor’s sourcing mistake

As a utility giant, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) has monumental flaws not only in its business model but in its sourcing of energy requirements, notably coal, the dirty fuel where it has a budget of about P20 billion a year.

The Way Forward: Mankind’s coping mechanism

It’s getting more depressing to read the newspapers and watch television nowadays. The hoary stories of crime in our society and mischief in government are bearable enough; they get me mad more than depressed.

William Pesek: President with CEO résumé loses luster

U.S. President George W. Bush paid his South Korean counterpart what many might consider a compliment: He called Lee Myung Bak a successful businessman.