In 2025, what once felt like procedural corruption became visceral and deeply personal. And if Noel and Liam Gallagher could reunite, then not everything broken in this world is beyond repair.
If you believe in a higher power, the events of 2025 tested that faith. In the Philippines, natural and man-made disasters followed one another, as if there was no tomorrow. And for those directly affected, that was exactly how it felt—except Filipinos endure, a resilience that has long been romanticized and exploited by corrupt politicians.
This is where the essence of 2025 lies: corruption in high places, heartbreak and untold loss among us, and sparks of courage everywhere.
It begins in the so-called “ghost month” of August, when nothing is supposed to happen, no contracts signed, no projects started. Instead, August blew the lid off state plunder, the spoils of which were flaunted by their relatives turned influencers.
On August 11, 2025, after severe flooding in Metro Manila and barely three months after local elections, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. released a list of the top 15 contractors that had cornered around P100 billion in flood-control contracts, many of them involving falsified records and ghost projects declared finished.
Korina Sanchez and Julius Babao are not heroes. They did not set out to expose the Discayas’ corruption; on the contrary, they were there to celebrate their excess—months before an election. Vico Sotto was correct to question their ethical integrity.
This might have remained just another list of unfinished projects. After all, the year before, in July 2024, Marcos declared in his SONA that 5,500 flood control were projects were completed, and 36 hours later Metro Manila became a river from the monsoon rains. It proved yet again that the president had no idea about the real state of the nation.
But on August 21, 2025, Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto dropped a post on social media implying the lack of ethical integrity of broadcast journalists Korina Sanchez and Julius Babao for featuring on their vlogs government contractors Curlee and Sarah Discaya’s mansion and 40+ luxury cars worth hundreds of millions if not billions of pesos.
Now corruption was no longer an abstract concept, not just something you complained about when passing another potholed road. It wasn’t just another Thursday in the republic. Corruption was now in hi-def YouTube videos, free for everyone to watch while their homes flooded yet again.
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Heroes, and the non-heroes
Make no mistake about it, Korina Sanchez and Julius Babao are NOT the heroes in this story like a few media personalities make them out to be. They did not set out to expose the Discayas’ corruption; on the contrary, they were there to celebrate excess. Neither broadcaster saw anything unethical about featuring the DPWH-contractor couple in their shows—with Sarah Discaya being a Pasig mayoral candidate and a first-time voter at 49—months before the May 2025 election. Vico was right to question Korina and Julius’ ethics at the very least. It doesn’t take a journalist to know there was conflict of interest especially with their pandering questions.
The videos blew open Pandora’s box, releasing accounts of bribery to DPWH bureaucrats, congressmen and mayors, the amounts of which will make your knees buckle. It also highlighted the excess of influencers related to politicians such as Heart Evangelista, married to then Senate President Chiz Escudero who received a P20-million campaign donation of from a DPWH contractor in 2022; and politician-contractors Christopher Co’s daughter and Zaldy Co’s niece Claudine Co, among others.
Public outrage surged, Senate hearings were convened. What once felt like procedural corruption became visceral and very personal to everyone.
More than at any other time, the cost of corruption is felt by everyone, every day. We feel it in higher prices, fewer choices, in lives we barely recognize.
Just as Metro Manila was beginning to calm down after a weekend of protests in September, Typhoon Tino made landfall and triggered devastating floods across Cebu province on November 4, 2025. The death toll was 114 with hundreds more missing and billions worth of homes and infrastructure destroyed. Yet again, the “343 flood control systems” did not work—if they existed at all.
Through all this, heroes emerged: Grab drivers trapped in floodwaters and torrential rains still trying to do their jobs; workers lining up for hours to get to their offices; children bravely waiting out the floodwaters on rooftops; pet owners saving their dogs; and rescue workers saving families.
Then there was Rep. Chel Diokno and Rappler, doing what passed for God’s work, quietly questioning during the hearings, making sense of the quagmire. Diokno in four questions got to the bottom of a DPWH contractor’s campaign donation to Chiz’s vault where the histrionics of Senators Joel Villanueva and Jinggoy Estrada failed. Was anyone really surprised that the latter two were implicated in the kickbacks later?
Rappler, for its part, did what it has long been known to do: follow the paper trail, verify sources and filings, and connect the dots. When theatrics again dominated the national conversation—fueled by the camp of former President Rodrigo Duterte and the astonishingly oblivious Imee Marcos telling the world that her brother, the president, is a drug addict—Rappler’s reporting continued, allowing people to understand how the machinery of corruption actually worked.
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A year of protests
I remember looking at the news, the outpouring of anger onto the streets across Asia, and thinking: corrupt politicians are lucky Filipinos are not burning their houses to the ground. The student and youth-led protests in Bangladesh and Indonesia, meanwhile, resulted in torched vehicles, deaths, and bombings.
Like in the Philippines, the Asian protests were triggered by corruption and the excessive lifestyles of political families.
In the US, the peaceful No Kings protests were held across the 50 states on October 18 in about 2,700 locations. In Europe, protests were also happening against corruption and for judicial independence.
More than at any other time in the world, the cost of corruption is felt by everyone, every day. We feel it in higher prices, fewer choices, in lives we barely recognize.
Then there was food, AI, and music
While Oxford Dictionary named “rage bait” (content created to spark anger on purpose) as its word of the year, Collins Dictionary went further by crowning “vibe coding” (telling an AI what you want and letting it write the code for you) as its word of the year.
It signals “the rise of AI models making executable software. And it marks a shift in how people now fear technology less, how there are fewer rules, more play, more collaboration,” as the story on The POST puts it.
The Michelin Guide finally arrived in the Philippines, marking a long-awaited milestone for the country’s dining scene. For the inaugural 2026 Michelin Guide, covering Manila, environs, and Cebu, a total of 108 restaurants earned recognition. The list included nine Michelin-starred restaurants—one two-star and eight one-star establishments—alongside 25 Bib Gourmand honorees and 74 Michelin Selected restaurants.
I still don’t understand people who say Michelin Guide shouldn’t be ranking our restaurants. Why would you deny restaurants the sudden surge of new interest among diners? If only in that sense, Michelin Guide is doing Filipino food a service, translating directly into livelihoods
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As expected, there were debates about who made the list, who didn’t, and what global recognition means for the local food culture. I still don’t understand people who say Michelin Guide shouldn’t be ranking our restaurants. If national pride was the reason, then we shouldn’t be joining Miss Universe either. How dare they judge the Filipina’ brand ‘s unique beauty!
So, why would you deny restaurants the sudden surge of new interest among diners? If only in that sense, Michelin Guide is doing Filipino food a service, translating directly into livelihoods, and a fuller appreciation of what they have to offer.
In entertainment, Taylor Swift got engaged to Travis Kelce; Emily in Paris season 5 was universally panned; Stranger Things ended; Jacob Elordi turned in an incredible performance in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein; and KPop Demon Hunters became a runaway success on Netflix, giving us the moving, breakout stories of director Maggie Kang and singer Ejae.
The biggest news in music, of course, was the Oasis Reunion 2025, after 16 years of estrangement and late-night Twitter rage baiting. From that first show when Liam Gallagher and his older brother Noel Gallagher walked into Principality Stadium in Cardiff on July 4, I scoured TikTok every night for concert videos until their tour ended in November. (I couldn’t get a ticket on Ticketmaster.)
The “Oasis dads” (and moms) were the Gen X and older millennials’ equivalent of “Swifties.” Now they understood all the crying at a concert and the “I grew up with their music” sentiment.
Who knew that Liam would again be hugging and kissing Noel? Or that he would defend him on Twitter when a fan asked if his brother was still a potato (a name Liam gave him, by the way): “No he is bloody well not. I won’t have a bad word said about that gorgeous talented young man.” I swear Liam is the funniest rock star to walk the earth.
And if Noel and Liam Gallagher could reunite, then not everything broken in this world is beyond repair.
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