‘TIS THE season for year-enders, but it’s also the season to be merry. So we thought we should refrain from getting anyone too depressed (your family can do that for you). Instead of having predictions for 2007, which seem to be already sending some people over the edge, we are going fast forward to 2010. It’s a nice, even number, although it’s also the year when we are supposed to choose our next president. Which is why the predictions we asked people to make for the December issue of i Report focus on politics and how these will have an impact on our lives.
We did assume that since it’s still a good three years or so away, the people who deigned to examine their coffee grounds, consult their Tarot cards, or look at star charts would have something positive to say. The contributions are still trickling in as this is being typed out, but what we can tell you is that the ghost of the political present will be spooking our future — and it’s not a friendly ghost at all. As it is, their current circumstances have already spooked some of our would-be contributors, leading them to turn down our request for their take on 2010.
But there’s no avoiding the future, just as there is no avoiding politics, especially in this country. And so this month, spooked or not, you will have apparitions of 2010 conjured right on your screen by a range of personalities who are insiders in the fields they talk about. We shall start with political parties and elections and then move on to armed conflicts and other topics. You will hear voices from Metro Manila and elsewhere. We — or rather, our contributors — will also look at the effects of political policies on the economy, the family, maybe even music.
2010 will be the Year of the Metal Tiger, which one Chinese astrologer on the Web says will be a “time of dramatic change.” We’ve had one dramatic change after another for more than half a century now so we can surely take one more year of the same.
But we promised not to depress you, so here’s a thought: Whatever you will be reading, viewing, or hearing in the next few weeks won’t change the fact that we are the masters of our own fate. Thus, if for some reason you don’t like what our contributors see to be our collective future, you still have a little more than three years to help ensure that won’t be where we will all end up in 2010. And in case you do like the predictions, you also have the same amount of time to help make them come true.