[Rappler’s Best] To demand more, and better

I hope you had that much deserved rest and recreation during the holidays, and managed to celebrate Filipino talent that was on full display in the cinemas — from the award-winning Green Bones (here’s a review) to Michael Tuviera’s The Kingdom (a Philippines free from foreign rule) to Pepe Diokno’s Isang Himala, a “harrowing journey to the center of Filipino trauma,” as Rappler senior producer and reporter JC Gotinga puts it. Outside the Metro Manila Film Festival, Lé Baltar shared a list of the best films of 2024. 

We ended the year with our most impactful stories, which were made possible by people who shared their dreams and struggles with us, and who, in a sea of memes, GIFs, and AI fakery, trust in the power of storytelling. Here’s a few from that list:

• Biking 120 kilometers in Metro Manila was our most ambitious documentary in 2024. To find out how bike-friendly the capital is, our reporter Iya Gozum rode a loop that covered Pasig, Marikina, Quezon City, Valenzuela, Malabon, Caloocan, Manila, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, and Taguig. What did we find out? Check how we made sense of the data here.
• We embraced AI by making it work not just for journalism, but for communities of action, too. In collaboration with the Quezon City government, Rappler held an AI-powered public consultation that helped craft a car-free Tomas Morato ordinance. 
• The Philippines’ most entrenched dynasty is also the most powerful — the Marcoses. Researcher Patrick Cruz showed us why the Marcos clan’s return to Malacañang is merely the tip of the iceberg.
• Corruption under the old Duterte regime continued to unravel. Here’s Lian Buan’s tea on the Pharmally executives’ buying binge in Dubai.  
• Ah, our prized jewel Carlos Yulo. Watch and listen to the Olympian’s heartfelt interview with the Rappler Sports team months before he wowed Paris and the world. (A must-read: How Philippine sports can build off historic 2024 run)

December, though, tends to always jolt us, like a dam bursting from unfinished business and unresolved issues.

A twin tragedy struck South Korea with its continuing political turmoil and a fatal crash that killed 179 on board Jeju Air. US president-elect Donald Trump will take his oath on January 20 against the backdrop of violence — one that killed at least 14 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve and a blast of a Tesla Cybertruck driven by an American soldier, among other incidents. Iran detained 29-year-old Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, just the latest in a spiral of violence in a region where genocide is taking place and where rebels ousted a longtime strongman who left behind mounds of mass graves.

Indeed, the past year saw the most number of elections and political upheavals globally that would see their impact — whether in blows or increments — this 2025.

In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. enters the new year handicapped by a national budget that was crafted by a cartel of lawmakers who parceled out taxpayers’ money to bankroll their reelection or fund their incumbency. The cartel’s network of lawmakers, contractors, suppliers, operators, and bureaucrats has been entrenched for decades; the thieves get replaced over time but trust that there’s honor — and efficiency — among them in how they rig the budget in the guise of nation-building.

Like presidents before him, the last half of Marcos’ six-year term will whip him with blades of hard realities. He needs reminding that leaders grow into the job or are diminished by it. 

• Many are unhappy with the President, his estranged vice president, Sara Duterte, and primus inter pares Speaker Martin Romualdez. The last time this happened — low approval ratings for the country’s top two — was under the tumultuous years of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 
• Generally optimistic, Filipinos are less hopeful about the new year than they have ever been in the last 15 years. A visit to the grocery or markets continued to drain their emaciated pockets, prompting them to find ways to fight inflation.
• There are five elections to watch this year in the world, including the midterm polls in the Philippines which, according to University of California, Berkeley associate professor Leloy Claudio, is important for Marcos “who needs to consolidate his power” amid a bruising feud with the Dutertes.
• Rappler editor at large Marites Vitug says that one of Marcos’ biggest challenges this year is reining in his “fractured” security team. Incidentally, Marcos just removed the Vice President and past presidents from the National Security Council. 

In a December 2013 piece, I wrote about the late president Noynoy Aquino’s reality check, his third year in office: “The President will soon see for himself — if he hasn’t yet — how tough the last phase is going to be. It’s the nature of the beast: the entrenched problems begin to surface once again. The system catches up. It will be payback time. What was swept under the rug in the first three years that will now begin to haunt us? What processes and sectors were overlooked? What were the wrong choices that were not immediately addressed?”

Rodrigo Duterte vowed change after Aquino, and won. Marcos is entering his third year in Malacañang. It does him no harm to learn from an Aquino to stop another Duterte in 2028. 

We’d seen presidents enter their reality check phase encountering the same situation again and again. “Things begin to falter one after the other,” we wrote. The system does catch up. “And it catches fast those who think they’re fixing it when they’re in fact ducking it.”

As for us, the least we could do is to demand more, and better. 

Here’s to seeing and building islands of hope in 2025. Happy New Year! – Rappler.com

Rappler’s Best is a weekly newsletter of our top picks delivered straight to your inbox every Monday.

To subscribe, visit rappler.com/profile and click the Newsletters tab. You need a Rappler account and you must log in to manage your newsletter subscriptions.

The views expressed by the writer are his/her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Rappler.