THE year that ends today seems so fast and so slow at the same time.
It seems fast because we were simply caught up with surviving from day to day, only to see the holidays creep up from behind us. January 2025 started much like any other new year – filled with hopes but tempered with realistic expectations and some room for disappointment.
It seems slow because the problems do not appear to end. Indeed, every new day brings not a promise of hope but a guarantee of more infuriating revelations.
At the start of the year, Filipinos’ main challenge was how to survive with the soaring cost of goods and services with their meager salaries. There were concerns about finding jobs and better opportunities. These dominated the people’s concerns as we continued to hope for a better quality of life. There was divisiveness on the arrest of a former president and his incarceration in an international court for crimes against humanity. Coping with disasters was also an issue, with more intense and more frequent weather systems coming into the Philippine Area of Responsibility and causing losses in lives and livelihood.
The State of the Nation Address in late July, however, occasioned a shift in the nation’s perspective. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., citing recent flooding incidents in many places in the country, directed a full-blown investigation into flood-control projects. “Mahiya naman kayo!” were his famous words, repeated several times. In response, many officials present at the Batasan stood up and applauded those words.
What we know in greater detail today exposes the utter hypocrisy of those who applauded and the sheer tragedy of the people who pay for these officials’ salaries through the taxes they toil for.
The second half of the year, thus, was marked by the revelation of a deeply entrenched and widely practiced scheme of making insane amounts of money in the guise of flood-control projects. These eclipsed the series of earthquakes and typhoons in many parts of the country. The flooding from the typhoons was a constant reminder of the utter disservice done to us by so-called public servants.
We saw theatrics from those proclaiming their innocence, piles of cash piled on tables, fleets of luxury vehicles. There was the death of a public works official and the erosion of confidence in our systems and our leaders. We kept talking about transparency but somehow there was always a way to justify exceptions to the call.
We end 2025 with relief, because at least we get a chance to think about how best to approach the coming year. Of course, there should be allowances for surprises, too — just look at how the surprises of 2025 overwhelmed us.
Before we cross over into the new year tomorrow, may we allow ourselves to pause and sit still. The year was not easy, but what year is easy, anyway? In both our individual and societal capabilities, may we have the humility to acknowledge our failings, resolve to do better, and then begin anew by doing the right things, the right way.
