August 11th, 2025
When we transformed NEDA into the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development, my intent was not to rearrange an organizational chart or change a nameplate. It was to give the government a stronger capacity for thinking beyond the term of any administration, a function that too often disappears with the political cycle. Section 5(e) of Republic Act No. 12145 establishes a Futures Thinking Office within DEPDev. This is not decorative. It is a working unit meant to carry out the hard, disciplined work of anticipating what may come.
We say “futures” in the plural because there is no single trajectory ahead of us. The years to come will always contain multiple possible versions, each with its own set of opportunities, threats, and demands on the Republic. Some futures are probable, others improbable, but all deserve some measure of preparation. The basic premise is straightforward. When one of those futures, or something close to it, does happen, there should already be a plan, a note, or a scenario in a government file that can be acted upon immediately.
No one can predict the future with pinpoint accuracy. History never repeats, but it rhymes, as Mark Twain observed. Futures thinking is about disciplined observation of early signals, stress testing existing policies against different shocks, and preparing for both the unlikely but catastrophic events such as six sigma shocks and black swans, and the obvious but neglected threats such as grey rhinos. With the current pace of technological change, you cannot afford to be just two or three steps ahead. You need to prepare for the entire board, anticipating multiple lines of play at once.
I have written laws with this kind of agility before. Twenty-five years ago, when we crafted the Securities Regulation Code, I included in Section 37 a power for the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow innovative markets. I was not imagining cryptocurrency as it exists today, but I knew that securities would evolve in form and complexity. At some point, there would be markets for instruments we could not yet conceive. The law needed to be able to cover such evolutions without requiring a wholesale rewrite. The same principle applies here.
Nobody really predicted the pandemic, or more precisely, the way the world decided to respond to it. Pandemics have happened before, but never in human history had governments coordinated lockdowns so universally and for so long. The economic impacts were unprecedented, not only because of the disease itself, but because of the policy choices made in reaction to it. This is exactly the type of shock that futures thinking can help prepare for. The disruption is often in the response as much as in the triggering event.
We have lived through enough costly surprises. In 2008, a political decision in India to restrict rice exports caused global prices to spike, straining our food security. We should have had a strategy for the same thing happening in 2023, since we already experienced it. Every typhoon season, we face events that can erase years of local development in a matter of days. In each case, the national response had to be improvised even when past experience should have already been a good teacher. Improvisation is not strategy.
Somebody should be doing strategy for the whole government, not just for one sector, one administration, or one crisis at a time. That is the role of the Futures Thinking Office. It must scan for technological shifts, climate tipping points, demographic changes, and geopolitical developments that could alter our national trajectory. It must run structured scenario exercises and produce contingency playbooks for high impact risks. Its work must feed directly into the Philippine Development Plan, sectoral roadmaps, public investment programs, and the national budget.
The law already gives the mandate. DEPDev does not need to wait for another enactment to create the Futures Thinking Office. It can request a staffing pattern from the Department of Budget and Management immediately, citing Section 5(e). Once approved, the office can be staffed, its systems built, and its outputs integrated into planning cycles. It should also be an office that has the ear of the President and our highest leaders, because its mandate is to think ahead for the entire Republic.