President Bongbong Marcos Jr. is now forming a crisis committee as rising tensions abroad push fuel prices up and, soon enough, the cost of daily living. This move recognizes the need for coordination but also reflects how often action only comes once the pressure is already building.
What makes this harder to ignore is that the need for a more organized response had already been raised even before prices began to climb and before households started adjusting on their own.
The Senate had already pushed for a national contingency plan, with Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano pointing out early on that disruptions tied to oil supply would quickly reach the country and trigger a familiar chain of increases. That view was not based on reaction but on experience, drawn from a pattern that has repeated often enough to be anticipated.
The proposal itself was straightforward: prepare ahead of time, bring agencies into one coordinated response, and act at the first signs of pressure instead of after the impact has already spread across transport, food, and basic goods.
What is taking shape now moves in that same direction, with the formation of a crisis committee showing that the need for coordination is no longer being debated, even if it is only now being carried out at a broader level.
The timing, however, remains unchanged, as fuel subsidies and cash assistance are now being rolled out only after prices have already gone up and after households and small businesses have already begun adjusting, which means the first impact has already been absorbed before support fully arrives.
The point has already been raised before the pressure built up, yet the response still follows after the impact has begun, and that gap between early warning and delayed action continues to define how the country deals with recurring crises. ###