2025 Gratitude List

So it is not happiness that makes us grateful. It's gratefulness that makes us happy. If you think it's happiness that makes you grateful, think again. It's gratefulness that makes you happy.

- Bro. David Steinl-Rast

I have to say that 2025 has been quite a year! It’s a year of accomplishments and realizations, year after year life has its way of making things really busy. It has taught me how to value my time more and value what really matters. The year has been driven by tough decisions I had to make, life offers a lot options to choose from and it demands that we choose whatever is best. It’s never easy but there is always something to be thankful about.

Gratitude, doesn’t end with what we have received and being thankful for them but being thankful and being ready to share what we have received to those in need. That is perhaps, as I see it, gratitude in its truest sense. So let me begin with my immediate family, always ready to listen and talk to me about my plans and decisions. The guidance they continuously provide proved how strong the family supports each of us.

Let me express my gratitude to the people who have devoted, shared and even gave their time and effort in helping lift the lives of our farmers and fisherfolks. They are our leaders, government agencies, private institutions, other departments in the local government unit, other local government units, the academe and individuals with similar advocacy. It’s a tough battle indeed, changing something what has become part of the whole system since time immemorial.

I’d also like to thank my colleagues and officemates for a job well done this year! It goes to show that I cannot do all things alone, your assistance have contributed a lot and I look forward to working with you more in the coming years. You made work a little easier to carry, work is more meaningful when it is done and spent with you. The organization is not perfect but our awareness that it is not, makes us grow.

We thank our farmers and fisherfolks, the very reason why our office exists. Working hand in hand to attain our goals for the year is a source of inspiration for us. There may have been conflicting positions that may have lead to agreeing to disagree but we have the same dream of making life better for everyone in the sector.

I am very thankful for the little miracles I have personally seen this year! Strangers who were randomly around who meddled to keep us safe, planned and unexpected visits from friends, people who offered help and accommodation during my visit to different places, new friends I gained in my trips, making it through life’s problems and finding the courage to always move forward.

An kada taon, napoon asin natatapos na pano nin maogmang paglaom. An Saiyang padagos na pagkamoot satuya yaon pirmi! With these, I'd like to say I am ready to meet 2026, begin the year also with gratefulness and whatever it brings I am quite sure there's always a reason to be thankful!