The People’s Wish for 2026: Old Decadent Habits Must Die

If there is one New Year wish that could unite every peace-loving Filipino alive, it is this: to finally have decent, honest, and accountable leaders governing our country—at both the national and local levels. The old and decadent habits of corruption, vote-buying, dynastic entitlement, and plunder with impunity must go. They must die.

For too long, Filipinos have been trained to endure what should never have been tolerated: abuse of power, deception, and the systematic theft of public funds. The year that has just passed—2025—stripped away all remaining excuses. One scandal followed another: dubious public works, illegal fund transfers, and the brazen handling of people’s money. Investigations stalled. Accountability remained selective. Some officials resigned, some fled abroad, others sought protection or asylum—while institutions meant to uphold justice chose caution over courage.

What should have sparked sustained outrage instead produced something more dangerous: numbness. Not because the crimes were small, but because they were familiar. Sanay na. Manhid na. Bahala na.

Yet anger has not vanished. It has gone underground. It surfaces in kitchens and jeepneys, in hospital corridors and school gates, on social media and in whispered conversations. It is heard among fisherfolk in Camarines Sur and Albay; among construction workers and sari-sari store owners; among nurses on double shifts; among students staring at shrinking futures; among senior citizens forced to choose between food and medicine. They all say the same thing: pagod na kami.

The New Year arrives, but nothing changes. Prices rise. Wages stagnate. Public services deteriorate. Only the powerful grow richer—more insulated, more protected, more immune to consequence.

This shared exhaustion has hardened into what many now call a Trillion-Peso March—not a single rally, but a nationwide indictment expressed through daily conversations, prayer vigils, civic refusals, and collective memory. It is a demand for accountability, transparency, the return of stolen public funds, and an end to the billions lost to corruption disguised as development.

Defenders of the status quo point to poverty statistics as proof of progress. Yes, official figures show a decline in poverty incidence—from nearly half the population in the mid-1980s to around 15 percent today. But these numbers conceal a harsher truth. Progress has been slow, uneven, and repeatedly reversed by crises, disasters, pandemics, and—most of all—governance failures. Millions who are no longer labeled “poor” remain one illness, one typhoon, or one missed paycheck away from collapse.

Nearly four decades after the restoration of democracy, the real question remains unanswered: has the quality of life of the majority been fundamentally transformed? For many Filipinos, the honest answer is no. By international standards, nearly three-quarters remain poor or economically vulnerable. While neighbors translated growth into security and dignity, Filipinos endure insecure jobs, high living costs, inadequate health care, broken transport, and weak public services. Growth has not been shared; it has been captured by a few.

As 2026 begins—while familiar political clans quietly revive their machinery for 2028—this failure of governance can no longer be ignored. In the Philippines, leadership too often operates as inheritance, mana-mana lang ng puwesto, family franchise, or insurance against prosecution. Dynasties persist because they are tolerated, financed, defended, and repeatedly rewarded at the ballot box. They have become sacred cows.

People say they want change. But change will not come from speeches, slogans, or recycled promises. It will come only through civic refusal: the deliberate withdrawal of consent from a rotten system. Refusal to sell votes. Refusal to excuse corruption as diskarte. Refusal to normalize dynastic rule. Refusal to reward thieves with applause, airtime, or power.

Our national heroes understood this. Andrés Bonifacio did not ask permission for reform. He withdrew obedience from an unjust order. The Katipunan was born when Filipinos recognized that compliance itself was the problem.

That lesson is urgent again. If 2026 is to mean anything, civic refusal must be collective and sustained—expressed in how citizens vote, speak, organize, remember, and relentlessly hold power to account. Fanatical partisanship must end. Personal loyalty must never trump public interest. What is required is not cosmetic reform but structural change. Otherwise, we will keep changing names, not systems—and remain trapped in the same cycle of corruption we pretend to oppose.