FIRING LINE: Hope in 2026

By Robert B. Roque, Jr.

And so this is 2026… not quite the hopeful refrain of a new year unfolding, but a pause heavy with questions: what have we done, and what has been done to us? For many Filipinos, the turn of the calendar feels less like renewal and more like reckoning — politically bruised, economically cautious, and socially worn down by a year that tested both patience and trust.

That mood is captured starkly in the latest year-end survey by PAHAYAG, the public opinion initiative of PUBLiCUS Asia, Inc., with Vox Opinion Research as its commissioned arm — an outfit that has tracked Filipino sentiment since 2017 and knows when discontent is not just noise, but a pattern.

Nearly six in ten Filipinos, or 58%, say they are pessimistic about the country’s direction as 2026 approaches. While that figure is an improvement from the bleak 70% recorded the previous quarter, it remains significantly worse than the 49% registered a year ago. Optimism has ticked up to 42%, driven largely by better expectations for household finances and the economy — but even that remains below last year’s levels. The numbers surely mirror a nation far from reassured.

After all, 2025 was not short on reasons to worry. A trillion-peso flood control scandal exploded into public view, triggering resignations, flight risks, and a deepening sense that accountability remains selective. The IMF downgraded the country’s growth outlook, while economic expansion slowed to its weakest pace in four years. High-stakes political shocks followed: impeachment proceedings against the Vice President, plunder and graft complaints, and the arrest of a former president on an ICC warrant — events that would rattle even the most mature democracies.

Nature, too, showed no mercy. The Philippines was again named the world’s most disaster-prone country, battered by super typhoons, deadly earthquakes, and relentless flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands. PAGASA now warns of a wetter-than-average 2026 under La Niña — hardly comforting news for communities still rebuilding.

And yet, pessimism is not surrender. Filipinos have endured worse and endured together. There is resilience in the young who still believe, in workers here and abroad whose remittances keep the economy afloat, in public servants and private citizens who quietly do the right thing. The survey may measure doubt — but it also hints at resolve. Even after a bruising year, the country has not lost its capacity to rise.

Let me cite a specific example close to my heart: the passionate work done by my fellow members of the Manila Sampaguita Lions Club led by Club President Christian Munoz to spread joy and sustenance to 200 street dwellers in Malate, Manila.

For the fifth Christmas since 2021, our club’s feeding and gift-giving project for street dwellers was made possible again through a steady and generous donation from San Miguel Corporation.

The outreach activity, originally slated last December 10, hit a logistical snag that made it easy to shelve the effort. Christmas had already passed, but pessimism did not rule our hearts. The donations still arrived, and members still attended.

On a late-night convoy on December 29, ready-to-eat meals and bottled water made their way to families sleeping on sidewalks. The project was realized — not as a consolation act after the holidays — but as a deliberate gesture to usher the homeless into 2026 with something many had been denied all year: reassurance. Food that could last a few days, not just as a buffer against hunger, but a strong reminder that they had not been forgotten.

Perhaps this is how pessimism is truly countered… through quiet acts that reset someone’s outlook. For those street dwellers in Malate, at least, the Manila Sampaguita Lions and San Miguel Corporation may have done something remarkable: they may have crossed a few names off the list of Filipinos entering 2026 with dread and replaced it, even ever so briefly, with hope.

*         *         *

SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X app (formerly Twitter). Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thephilbiznews.com