SOL Upgrades for the New Year!
Sapian Online (SOL) celebrates the New Year with an upgrade. The upgrade renews SOL’s commitment to reconnect Sapianons and, most importantly, affirm that Sapian is part and parcel of the global community.
Only a few New Years ago, the concept of globalization was a faint hum in the academe and Western capitals. Global concept for Sapian was no more than having relatives living or working overseas. And while we have been preoccupied with NPAs and lost commands, the miserable state of transportation and telecommunications made us feel that Sapian was too far removed from the world’s wars, political conflicts and religious extremism. Sapian’s potential physical exposure to a global crisis has been as rare and statistically remote as the fall of Skylab in July 1979. Likewise, the bottomless bounty of Sapian Bay and abundant produce on land cushioned Sapianons from the ill effects of economic downturns in the West. And the weather was a truly predictable cycle of monsoon rains with occasional surge to typhoons and dry summers with occasional drought spells. Gone were those days.
Sapian is no longer isolated from the world. Recently, we have come to recognize the fact that world is getting smaller because of advances in transportation and communication. For many of us, global awareness started with cable feeds of live satellite broadcasts as the news occurs. A few years ago, international flights in Iloilo and Kalibo would have been unthinkable. The number of Sapianons working and living overseas has been proportionally higher now than at any time. Marine products in Sapian are reaching the far corners of the world. Most significantly, text messaging and internet access allow real-time, interactive communication from Sapian to anyone, anywhere on earth. Information age started to integrate Sapian into the global community. And it is only the beginning. In the coming years, new opportunities will become available as information infrastructures are laid, maybe not by government initiative but by increasing consumer demands. In just a matter of time, the increased and democratized access to information networks will improve opportunities and competitiveness for Sapian and allow participation in a variety of value generating offshore services like customer support, finance and software engineering among others.
As we share the blessings of virtual global integration, we virtually share global concerns in politics, economy, health and public safety, environment and virtually every sphere of life. Today, international events ripple through Sapian in real time. Historically, the downturn of the US economy buoys up Asian economies like the petroleum stabilization effects as a result of moderating US demand; decreased relative value of national debt and debt service; and increased buying power of the Peso. Unfortunately globalization has created negative impacts on the local economy of the US downturn. Among other things, there will be a decreased value in OFW remittances and its commensurate diminished purchasing power because foreign incomes are generally pegged on the US dollar. Then there is web of negative impacts such as lower GNP because a large chunk of it comes from OFW remittances on one hand, and the decreased value of dollar-denominated national foreign reserve. Sapian exports may increase in net value but its net benefits are not directly transferred to the local producers. Pity, the new economic order is too complex to ascertain for the Federal Reserve and Wall Street experts. Keynesian economic control valves may no longer be as effective in a world of regional trade blocs, liberalized economies and free trade markets. One consumer durable may have components assembled in a dozen countries that are, in turn, fabricated from two dozens more.
On geopolitics, nuclear arms proliferation achieved new proportions, particularly since politically unstable nations like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear capability. Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism recognize no boundaries and impact everyone, anywhere. In addition, America is preparing for the cyclical occurrence of the pandemic flu that last hit in 1918 with 30-50 million deaths. If it occurs in the U.S. today albeit its medicine and resources, infectious disease experts project deaths of between 207,000 to 3.7 million. Wherever in the world it begins, no country is safe because of speed and frequency of air travel - 500 million people fly each year. On top of these is the inconvenient truth of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere and retaining the sun’s heat far longer than normal and increasing global temperature; thus, changing regional climates, widening the tropical zone, altering plant and animal habitat everywhere, melting the polar ice caps and increasing sea level by one foot in 10 years to 6 feet by 2050. We reflect on these concerns not to proclaim doom and to spread alarm - it has been overdone throughout history - but to demonstrate that Sapian is very much a part of the emerging global economic, social, political, environmental and cultural realities. One common aspect of all these is the simple Malthusian precept of geometric population growth in the midst of arithmetical agriculture production and, today, severely depleted natural resources. As of today, January 4, 2008, 16:34 GMT, the world population is recorded at 6,641,893,699. Therefore, 75,000 Sapianons now compete for limited resources against the world’s 6.6 billion. A few decades ago, theorists of human and ecological security have proposed that humanity would wage wars against each other not for global domination or accumulation of wealth but for rudiments of human survival – food, water and air.
In 2000, we braced up for Millennium Crash and nothing happened. But there will be no harm if our 2008 New Year’s resolution includes that of hope, peace, frugality, resource conservation, awareness for pandemic flu, environmental protection, innovativeness, entrepreneurship and global competitiveness. Happy New Year!
