This APEC thing has been very taxing for most of Metro Manila’s residents, who had to walk kilometers to get to work because police had to close major avenues to the work centers. We still don’t have figures about how bad APEC affected us when those 20 heads of state came over to visit and talk. But there surely will be substantial negative impact.

Many of the government offices and private businesses had to close after Malacanang declared public holidays, and workers who get paid daily will surely lose a lot when pay is computed by the end of the month. Kids didn’t go to school for four days and lost valuable class hours; they’ll need extra school days to recover. Businessmen had to forego trips and reschedule meetings with clients because flights were cancelled. Result: new opportunities down the drain.

Even Manila bay fishermen couldn’t go out to sea because security officials were afraid some terrorist may fire missiles out of bancas near the approach to the international airport.

We stopped doing a lot of things, and if we did do them, we had to suffer delays and major inconveniences – like walking a few kilometers – all because some 20 heads of state and their aides need to be able to move freely and securely in Manila.

Well, I guess it happens every time there’s APEC somewhere. But it doesn’t become a problem for host countries that can afford the expense and the loss of opportunity. Days after APEC, there will be stories about how much businesses lost during those four or five days, and how school children will be “paying” for lost class hours by holding weekend classes. And there will be stories of lowly employees getting deductions because they were late, gravely late, for work for several days.

Of course, the government will flaunt gains and benefits they got from APEC, but definitely there will be great losses.

Big business could easily recover from the loss, and government wouldn’t mind spending people’s taxes because they’ll say the benefits outweighed the risks.

But there is no way hourly- or daily-waged workers could recover from the loss. Workers who were forced to take those days off even when they needed to earn daily to feed their families will not recover. And these are the people who seldom complain about their plight. Or if they complain, there’s no one who turns an ear to them.

These events – and other major international events that we frequently host – should have by now shown important lessons to the authorities about how to manage things so that we are able to balance our being gracious and willing hosts and our more urgent need to continue working our day jobs and to get our children to school.

It’s very basic. Why should we stop working, why should our children stop going to school, why should business be at a standstill, just because some people – yes, presidents and prime ministers – wanted to meet and discuss things here among us?

Surely, those presidents and prime ministers wouldn’t enjoy being the cause of inconvenience – or the lack of income for many Filipinos – just because they wanted to have coffee and chit-chat among themselves.

And mind you, much of the work for APEC didn’t happen during those five days of November. The big names in diplomacy and their technocrats have been coming in and going out for months and talking things over that the heads of state would simply finalize in those few hours of meetings last week.

It must be that we are overly concerned with security and with building a good image that we are willing to sacrifice several days of freezing business and suspending people’s rights to work and earn for their families. And government admits that. They’d rather see some Filipinos go hungry than suffer international criticism had one single terrorist incident occurred.

But with proper planning – a much common sense on the part of our government leaders – there should be no need in the future to have to impose these restrictions.

You could see it in the faces of those policemen manning closed intersections and barring jeepneys and minivans from crossing – they were not happy with what they were doing. You could read they had better ideas, only that they had to follow orders. It gives you the feeling that, “Hey, they should have called in the private sector and the community and gathered some input before deciding to suspend work and classes and close major roads! They don’t know what they’re doing.”

Next time, government should listen to those communities to be impacted by events like these and consider their ideas before deciding on anything.

Nevertheless, in our current state, taking care of our own domestic troubles should be foremost in the minds of our national leaders, much more important than building a good international image of being the willing and gracious host to APEC meetings and the like.

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