‘In a situation that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, Filipinos living in a supposed Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality must learn to grapple with business model reinvention, market cannibalization, whole systems approach, corridor growth, and the jagged frontier.’
NOW can you lead amid invisible disruptions? Be resilient in VUCA times? Be agile in a Multipolar World? Catastrophic climate change. Robot apocalypse. Another pandemic. An interstellar object entering the Earthlings’ solar system. New Catholic saints for the 21st century.
Eight decades prior, it was a bipolar world and the victorious coalition (the original United Nations) had one last celebration concluding the Global Anti-Fascist War: “On September 7, 1945, at 9:30 a.m., servicemen of the allied armies and military equipment began to arrive at the central square of Berlin. The prepared stands were occupied by generals and officers of the allied forces. About 20 Berliners gathered in the area where the parade was taking place. Present at the podium were representatives of the commanders-in-chief of the occupation forces: from Great Britain—Deputy Commander of the British occupation forces, Major General Brian Robertson, from the USA—General George Patton, from France—Commander of the French occupation forces in Germany and on the Rhine, General Marie-Pierre Koenig. Opposite were four orchestras – one from each victorious power (USSR, USA, England and France). Each combined regiment had to march past the spectator stands to the brass accompaniment of its own orchestra. At exactly 11 o’clock, Georgy Zhukov drove up to the podium in an open car and made a frontal inspection of the troops.” [https://en.topwar.ru/270544-pochemu-zabyli-parad-pobedy-v-berline.html] [Парад Союзных Войск в Берлине 7 сентября 1945 г._ Allied Victory Parade Berlin_ПОЛНАЯ ВЕРСИЯ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQhQdf-QSg8]
For the British, it was time to recover more lost ground in Southeast Asia, Operation Zipper, for instance: “We went to Madras where the ship was fitted out to carry about 2,000 ‘Ghurka Commandoes’ and eventually put them ashore on the Benim Beaches — on the coast of Malaya without opposition from the Japanese. Next, we joined the invasion fleet (under Mountbatten) and proceeded to Singapore…The British POWS had been making for the docks and we tried to give them something to eat until some sort of organization could take over…Gradually, the walking skeletons filled out — they even liked rice pudding, especially with pineapple! On arrival in the UN, they were almost back to normal their families had been saving rations for weeks.” [https://www.bbc.com/history/ww2peopleswar/user/28/u524228.shtml]
And for Filipinos caught in the counter-collaborationists campaign, politics as usual: “My family again visited me. Roxas came again. He told us he could not pardon Osmeña for stating that Quezon would have preferred death than cooperate with the Japanese.” [Diary of Antonio de las Alas, September 11, 1945 Tuesday]
Yes, 80 years ago, it was a bipolar era for Filipinos. Today, “we already live in a world shaped by ‘multipolarization’…both a global shift of power to a larger number of actors around the world as well as increasing polarization on the international and domestic levels…it could also reverse progress, fuel inequalities, damage human rights, constrain global problem-solving, and make war more likely. If we want to preserve common ground in a world shaped by more actors and increasing polarization, we all have to recommit to those rules laid down in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” [Munich Security Report, “Multipolarization,” February 2025]
Monde Multipolaire? “I wrote as long ago as 1991 of the emergence of an ‘empire of chaos’…it implies a recognition that the social system in which we live is thoroughly ‘global’ or ‘globalized’, and that any alternative to globalization based on the principles of liberal capitalism (or its more extreme ‘neoliberal’ form) can itself be nothing other than ‘global’. In other words, I am a champion of what has been called ‘alter-globalization’, not an advocate of ‘anti-globalization’ in the sense of opposition to any form of globalization…my idea of the multipolarity that is necessary today entails a radical revision of ‘North–South relations’, in all their dimensions.” [Samir Amin. Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World. London: Zed Books Ltd, 2006]
Is a multipolar Earth a safer place than a bipolar planet? “The world in 1914 certainly wasn’t a German-British duopoly. The Anglosphere tends to over-emphasise this rivalry…It was the very absence of a clear hegemonic order that created the multipolar mess the Great War became. Between Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, as Lamont Colucci has recently noted ‘the medium and lesser powers attempted to use the great powers for their own reasons’.” [Julian Snelder, “A dangerous history of multipolarity,” Lowy Institute, February 201]
WW1 —> WW2 —> WW3? Yes, Filipinos should aspire for a cooperative multipolar system—one based on dialogue, mutual respect, and new approaches to global governance, rather than conflict and division…(but) with both optimism and realism, fully aware that the forces shaping the international order could lead to unpredictable and potentially dangerous outcomes.” [Vankovska, et.al., Cooperative Multipolar System: In Quest for a New World Order, Skopje: Bomat Graphics, 2025]
Danger near. In a situation that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, Filipinos living in a supposed Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality must learn to grapple with business model reinvention, market cannibalization, whole systems approach, corridor growth, and the jagged frontier. These we learned last 09 September 2025 from the 23rd MAP International CEO Conference.
