THE COVID-19 pandemic has created immense challenges. Human ingenuity has responded and has produced workable strategies. In most countries, we are seeing significant reductions in deaths and serious debilitation from the pandemic. Many nations, including the Philippines, had a policy of lockdowns until the effects of the pandemic were mitigated. Then the irksome restrictions to which we were all subject were slowly relaxed. We found, eventually, that we were beating the virus.
The world of work, particularly in the private sector, found that it was possible, due to recent technological advances, to maintain productivity at pre-pandemic levels without having to make the daily journey to the office. This quickly raised the question about ‘the new normal’. What will happen when the pandemic is brought down to levels that we do not find unacceptable?
It would seem that the new normal will not compel all workers to travel daily to the office. They would be able to work from home on a fairly regular basis.
If working from home is acceptable, what about working from anywhere? In principle, this seems feasible.
Meetings via Zoom, where attendees may discuss matters at nearly the same quality as face-to-face meetings are possible and have become frequent.
Working from anywhere may result in enormous changes. It should result in the Philippines becoming less NCR-centric. The cost of living the Manila conurbation is excessive compared with ‘provinces’. It would help the overall economy of the Nation if we could implement a carefully planned devolution program./PN
