“In every field of endeavor, even in geopolitics, ‘timing is everything’ or so the savants keep admonishing
Even as the horse has yet to trample on the snake’s head, and the lunar year starts on Feb. 17 yet, events around the globe have brought 2026 to a galloping start.
The Year of the Fire Horse in feng shui belongs to those who take swift, bold, even unorthodox actions to achieve intended result.
Those born in the Year of the Horse may think the stars align for them in this year, but they are not the luckiest, unlike tigers, dogs, sheep, and rabbits who have more to gain in this “fiery”, fast-paced year.
Which is how Fire Dog Trump struck at the Tiger Maduro before the latter’s luck turns for the better in mid-February.
And the Donald did it with the timing of a Snake, with precision and pinpoint accuracy. It was fire dog versus water tiger, before the latter could douse its water on the firestorm.
How Rabbit Putin whose spheres of influence have been and are being dismantled as we write, whether in Venezuela or Iran, can yet react, even as his Ukraine invasion is yet stalemated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, born before the Horse ended the reign of the Snake, bears watching. But neither the stars nor the elements favor Putin this year.
Will the Donald’s “invasion” of oil-rich Venezuela, and the imminent overthrow of the theocracy that has ruled oil-rich Iran since the fall of the Shah during the Jimmy Carter presidency, tilt the geopolitical equation once more in favor of “imperialist” America?
And how will the Snake Xi Jinping position itself, with its sources of oil now imperiled by the earth-shaking events of these galloping starts in 2026? Will the “Snake” slither back in its determination to retake Taiwan, and wait for the perfect timing?
After all, there will be mid-term elections in the “renegade” island which China considers its province this year, with the Kuomintang and TPP ostensibly joining forces to challenge the local leaders of the Democratic Progressive Party and its fiercely independent Lai Ching-te, born in the Year of the Pig.
The wily Snake in the mainland need not strike this early and can wait till the more friendly parties in Taiwan upstage the ruling DPP, as prelude to taking over the reins of power in 2028. The Chinese can be patient, and with a Snake as its leader, wait for the perfect time to re-unite, rejuvenate, and avenge its century of humiliation.
After all, China remembers how the Ox Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor in the Year of the Snake, but was forced to surrender to its feng shui enemy, Monkey Harry Truman, after the latter ordered the drop of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just as the ghost month in 1945 began?
In every field of endeavor, even in geopolitics, “timing is everything,” or so the savants keep admonishing.
Back to our domestic woes, how will the galloping start of the New Year impact on our perennially benighted land?
Our Rooster president ended the Year of the Snake, his father’s birth animal, with very, very low trust and approval ratings, while his political enemy, an Earth Horse, still revels in high trust ratings despite all the mud thrown at her.
As the Year of the Fire Horse begins, she is expected to face another impeachment attempt by the courtiers of the current dispensation, even those from the Left and the Pinks who have conveniently allied themselves with the Rooster president, hoping for power resurrection in 2028.
With enough paper bills from the “maletas” still hidden in condos and mansions which the Bangko Sentral refuse to demonetize despite the wise-guy suggestion of Senator Robinhood, the HoR may yet succeed in impeaching the president’s Enemigo Numero Uno once again, even after a more tortuous “due process” that the Supreme Court has commanded.
They have tried it last year but failed. Worse, their prey seems to have emerged with lesser wounds than their convenient master.
In fact, because the Rooster president committed the most egregious political miscalculation — the kidnap-surrender of a Rooster predecessor, which has only worsened his political woes, while the economy which impacts on the lives of every Filipino save the filthy rich and the filthiest politicians continues to worsen, with little light at the end of the tunnel in 2026 — all these augur for another “annus horribilis”.
If the Horse gallops fast and with proper direction, seizes the day, while the Rooster characteristically engages in its favorite governance by talk and optics, how shall destiny be shaped?
