His victory was no mean feat as any official seeking a third term is almost always considered unbeatable. But Yorme did the unthinkable in booting Erap out of the City Hall.

The victorious Filipino athletes who copped only their second overall championship in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games would easily qualify for any award honoring individual or group achievements in the year about to end.

Collectively, in fact, the national athletes are shoo-ins to clinch the Athletes of the Year Award from the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA), the oldest media organization in the country composed of all the editors and sports scribes from the country’s leading broadsheet and tabloid newspapers.

It was no ordinary feat, although the Nationals’ wings got aided by the wind coming from the hosting chore — managed by a private entity that was led by a top government official — that was very controversial from the start.

The management of the hosting affair, and the subsequent probe on its expenses and other excesses by its officials notwithstanding, the athletes’ performance should not go unnoticed.

Host countries of the SEA Games get favorable aid from the SEA Games Federation in terms of the number of choice events where the hosts are likely to succeed.

So, the Philippines had a foot on the overall crown when it first declared its intention to host the biennial meet as the other past host countries had theirs when they took their turns earlier.

The overall championship, however, took so long in coming.

The Philippines waited 14 years to make it happen.

In 2005, the country’s top athletes won their first overall crown in a convincing fashion that made this year’s SEA Games drive quite harder and tougher for the new batch of Nationals.

The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), however, stepped up in sending the top athletes to foreign trainings and exposures which prepared them for the clinching of the crown.

The PSC had spent more than P1 billion for that. The amount is independent of the P6 billion that the government allocated to the Phisgoc (Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee) and its equivalent Phisgoc Foundation which only duplicated the original Phisgoc’s tasks.

The success of the athletes was spawned by the training program designed by the PSC, under the leadership of chairman William I. Ramirez, who coincidentally was also the chief of mission of Team Philippines in 2005.

He reprised that role in the recent SEA Games and again led Team Philippines to a second overall crown.

The other big news worthy of our praises was the conviction of the prime suspects in the Ampatuan massacre of 58 people, including 32 journalists who accompanied the convoy of Esmael Mangundadatu’s wife and relatives in filing his certificate of candidacy for the gubernatorial slot of Maguindanao in 2019.

It took a decade before Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes — the judge with the balls — handed proper judgment on several of the accused by declaring them as guilty of the carnage.

Twenty-eight of the 99 individuals charged in connection to the massacre were convicted as guilty. Fifteen were sentenced to a lesser offense. Fifty-six were acquitted.

Among those guilty were the Ampatuan brothers Zaldy, Datu Andal Jr., and Anwar Sr, along with their nephews Anwar Jr. and Anwar Sajid.

They were among the powerful and untouchables of Maguindanao until the massacre of the members of the family of their political rivals transpired.

The midterm elections last May also saw the rise of new faces in politics.

The Senate has new lawmakers in Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.

Their senatorial slots were driven mostly by the votes that catapulted former Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency in 2016.

Some local government units also saw big surprises.

Manila has a new city mayor in Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, the former actor and city vice mayor who toppled former president and two-term Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.

His victory was no mean feat as any official seeking a third term is almost always considered unbeatable. But Yorme did the unthinkable in booting Erap out of City Hall.

Vico Sotto was also a revelation in Pasig.

A first-termer city council member, Sotto braved the strong political front of Bobby Eusebio, whose name was considered as well-entrenched in the curbsides of the city. Sotto won convincingly, and he seems to be doing very well on issues no ordinary politicians would touch.

There were a lot of things to celebrate as there are a lot more needing our push to change.

But we could be hopeful for the new year. Yes, we should.

If there is one word to describe the year 2019, it would be “earth-shaking.”

It is not just because earthquakes were a big deal this year. A number of these shook mostly south of the Philippines, causing much damage to homes and infrastructure. People were also killed, helpless against the power of mother nature.

What made the past 12 months just a little more stoked, however, was the sense of great changes happening around us.

It was as if people were treading the edge of yesterday most of the time — eager to explore new territory yet somehow unable to detach from the old ways.

This sense of change, if we may be so cliché, came more strongly at around the time a mayor from Davao managed the jump to Malacañang.

Over these past few years, we, Filipinos, experienced “shakers” of a sort, in the sense that the usual and the comfortable (even if many times we knew utmost discomfort from the realities we were refusing to face) was replaced with novel (and usually mind-boggling) ways of doing things.

There was an air of “enough with playing safe” and more of “we deserve better than this,” based on President Rodrigo Duterte’s words, whether we agree or not with the quality of these words.

It just simply felt like we were being pulled out of and shaken into consciousness, breaking a long and apathetic stupor, to realize that Filipinos are worthy of the best.

This year, we got through so much — both natural calamities and man-made ones.

We survived a budget skirmish and had the midterm elections.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III assesses the 18th Congress as “a great start,” referring to the current composition of both the “new and dynamic” and the “experienced.”

He might as well have been referring to so many industries in our land, as the younger generations begin to fill spaces with their fresh ideas and revitalizing energy to create better changes.

Google Philippines, in its recap of Filipinos’ search queries in 2019, summarized the “searches on the most talked about events,” which included “Halalan 2019, Idol Philippines grand finals and the boxing match between Pacquiao and Broner.”

Google Phl said “trending topics for news reflect how Filipinos aimed to be more informed citizens as based on top search queries. The May senatorial elections landed the number one spot for the news category.”

This is proof that Filipinos, now increasingly younger in population, can no longer be accused of apathy — more and more are seeking information and getting their voices heard on the issues of our time.

Even the top trending topic in entertainment searches — Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Endgame” — was a sign of the times.

Top that with the title of the only local movie on the trending list, the box-office phenomenon “Hello, Love, Goodbye,” and one can get a sense of the current Filipino state of mind.

At the same time, the fact that Filipino searches reveal a deepening love for OPM, one may also equate it with a growing sense of pride in our culture — a stronger sense of identity which had sadly been lacking in the past.

Interestingly, as well, Darna and the Miss Universe beauty queens were also among the top Filipino searches, from which one could deduce that we long for inspiration to launch our big dreams.

This 2019, we realized that long-held dreams can become reality; that we do not have to stay stuck; and that we can look forward to standing strong after being toppled by various forms of earth-shakers in our lives.

From budget brouhahas to election intrigues, typhoons to earthquakes, we emerged alive and managed to dodge and learn from public figures’ private life displays, sports world controversies, the deaths of titans and taipans of industry and many other little tremors that “shookt” us to the core.

For many, it will feel like “goodbye, 2019, good riddance.” But in the spirit of gratitude for both good and bad and all that these life-shakers may contribute to our growth, it might as well be “hello, love, goodbye.”