2025: Floods, fractures and fortitude

By the time 2025 drew to a close, the Philippines was grappling with more than floods and earthquakes — it was facing a year where politics, institutions, natural disasters, and billion-peso questions about public funds all collided.

This was not a simple sequence of crises. It was a convergence: a presidency asserting control, a vice presidency pushed to the margins, a former president flown to The Hague, turbulence at the top of the police hierarchy, escalating maritime tensions, digital spaces weaponized for propaganda, catastrophic earthquakes, and flood-control projects that failed precisely when people needed them most.

The year began quietly, almost deceptively. Early in 2025, the administration reorganized the National Security Council, effectively sidelining Vice President Sara Duterte from high-level security discussions. What looked like routine restructuring quickly became a political fracture, signaling the formal breakdown of the Marcos–Duterte alliance.

Former allies hardened into critics, support bases entrenched, and power blocs repositioned. Bureaucratic changes morphed into political tremors felt across government offices, Congress, and local institutions.

The shocks intensified in March when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for former President Rodrigo Duterte. Many doubted the Philippines would act, yet Duterte was arrested at Ninoy Aquino International Airport and flown to The Hague — the first time a former Philippine president faced international criminal jurisdiction.

The nation split further: supporters cried betrayal, critics cheered delayed accountability, and courts, law enforcement, and policymakers were thrust into unfamiliar international scrutiny.

Institutional turbulence followed

In June, Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III became the first Philippine National Police Academy graduate to serve as chief of the PNP, hailed for professionalism and discipline.

Months later, after legal and administrative developments involving the National Police Commission (Napolcom) and the Palace, he was replaced, eventually moving into a civilian role. The episode highlighted friction, not collapse, showing how leadership stability in law enforcement remains tightly intertwined with politics, procedures, and power balances — and how reforms, however symbolic, can be fragile.

Meanwhile, another front intensified: The weaponization of information.

Influencers linked to political handlers pushed coordinated narratives. Edited clips spread faster than facts. AI-altered visuals distorted perception. Cyber-libel cases mounted. Gossip evolved into political artillery. In this environment, truth struggled not just to be heard — it struggled to survive.

Beneath rivers, valleys and coastlines, the nation faced quieter but deadly crises.

Flood-control funds, the subject of Palace briefings and audits, repeatedly flowed to a familiar circle of contractors. Projects clustered in politically protected territories.

“Completed” structures raised red flags. Investigators found not just flawed spending, but a deeply embedded system linking engineers, budgets, political shields, and private gain.

Public anger eventually boiled over

The administration froze new flood-control allocations pending a full review, triggering the “Trillion Peso March.”

Whistleblowers stepped forward

One contractor testified that nearly a billion pesos in cash had allegedly been delivered to officials over time — including hundreds of millions reportedly packed in instant-noodle boxes. Auditors flagged ghost and relocated projects. Lawmakers traced questionable insertions. Attempted payoffs and entrenched networks came under the spotlight.

Then nature struck

Earthquakes rattled homes, hospitals and schools, displacing families and exposing gaps in preparedness and infrastructure. Later, super typhoon “Uwan” and typhoon “Tino” killed hundreds, displaced millions, and overwhelmed flood-control projects supposedly built to protect communities. Residents watched rivers overflow newly inaugurated dikes, painfully experiencing the consequences of failed public works first-hand.

Accountability moved unevenly

Congress suspended one of the administration’s vocal critics over social media posts accusing public officials of plunder, while personalities tied to massive public-works budgets remained largely untouched. Ethics and politics collided, turning routine administrative actions into public battlegrounds.

By December, Malacañang sought to shape the narrative: cooperating with the ICC, restructuring national security leadership, freezing questionable allocations, and allowing audits to proceed. But the national mood remained complicated. A former president faced justice abroad, while domestic justice remained fragile. Police reforms were short-lived. Maritime tensions continued. Earthquake and flood survivors were still rebuilding. Thousands continued marching in white, demanding accountability.

And yet, amid the chaos, Filipinos endured. Communities helped one another. Volunteers mobilized. Ordinary people saved lives.

Resilience, long celebrated as a national trait, was put to the ultimate test. 2025 showed that endurance alone is not enough; resilience must not serve as a shield for government failure. It must demand systems that protect people, so they do not have to compensate for broken governance.

What made 2025 extraordinary was not scandal alone, but convergence: A fractured political alliance, an ex-president under international indictment, institutional friction, weaponized information, West Philippine Sea tensions, earthquakes, failing flood defenses and whistleblowers tracing public money through entrenched networks.

Everything collided

Whether 2026 becomes the year when investigations finally translate into justice — or just another chapter of endurance — will determine if a republic that nearly drowned, trembled, and bled in 2025 has truly learned to protect its people, or if “resilience” will remain a convenient excuse when systems fail again.