Exit plan

I was talking to Kevin, a Hong Konger, about the unrest currently playing out in their streets. Watching the protests reach higher peaks and even more improbable heights, it seems almost unthinkable Hong Kongers would dare to display this level of resistance to China, when their integration is pretty much locked in. Only a couple of decades more, and it's a certain goodbye to “two systems, one country.”

But Hong Kongers look like they want to milk their freedoms for what it's worth. Freedom of the press. Freedom of assembly. Freedom to cuss China whenever they feel like it. Which is really a good freedom to have, especially when it seems they're slowly taking over your islands and building military installations there, the better to occupy you with. (Oh, that's a Filipino issue, not a Hong Konger's).

So now we see riots and police brutality, lockdowns, and closed businesses. Flights cancelled, trains not running. No shopping, and omg, it's not safe to wear black!

"Are you worried, Kevin?" What will you do if China sends in the People's Liberation Army and swallows up Hong Kong? Kevin smiles and replies: "Oh, I'm not worried. I have a Canadian passport.”

Kevin has an exit strategy! That quickly turned the conversation to where we would go if all hell broke loose, and Trump pushes the nuke button to send his penile substitutes off to sh*thole countries, and the world disintegrates even further.

Ideas were bandied about, like Kiwi mountains or remote Thai isles. Kevin has a sister in Vancouver, so his Canadian passport would let him crash on her sofa. An Aussie asked about retirement visas in the Philippines. (Really? This crime-ridden coconut republic is a viable alternative for you?) The golden visa for the Euro zone was available for those with enough cash, while relatives all over the world were tagged as possible safe havens.

The fact that we were even talking about this scenario, with some admission that we had already thought about it previously, was telling. In our subconscious, there was acknowledgement that the world had reached unprecedented instability, and we were worried enough to think about what to do in an "emergency."

Is this the same conundrum playing out in the late '30s, right before World War II? "What do we do?" "Where should we go?" Were people stashing their currency and gold abroad? Were people already migrating out of Europe and into America? When should people make up their minds? Some left early, some scrambled just in time, and some made plans but never made it out.

Shiver down the back.

What would we do? It’s easy for those who are mobile to hop around the world. Germans and Singaporeans, carrying the most powerful passports in the world, have the most flexibility. Philippine passport holders, on the other hand, can only jet off to less desirable destinations at a moment's notice.

The more important question is, when do we give up? When do we think events are intractable?

For example, do Hong Kongers think that China will ever bow to their demands, discard Carrie Lam, and produce the white-shirted troublemakers for justice's sake? Or have they placed China in such an awkward position that there is no other graceful way for it to respond but to unleash its fists?

In our own context, do Filipinos think the democracy we enjoy will ever function as it should, instead of forever being manipulated by the powers that be into a monstrous system that only dispenses opportunities and justice when it doesn't inconvenience them? Will we ever solve the pollution problem, the transportation crisis, and the environmental degradation? Or is it time to tip our hats and acknowledge that the damage to institutional systems, the disappearance of rule of law, the transfer of power to the abusers, all that is irreversible, and it is better to ship out before we cross the wrong power player?

As they say, timing is everything, and a little planning hurt no one.