Battles we fight on all fronts

By Alex P. Vidal

“No one is perfect in this world, and we all have our battles, but it’s the way we get back on our feet and turn it around that really counts.” – Tiffany Thornton

WITH the myriad of problems we face nowadays, can the Filipino people survive?

We assume that most of us are aware that the Philippine peso further dropped to a record closing low against the U.S. dollar on Aug. 27, 2026.

It fell 23.8 centavos to settle at PHP 61.888 per U.S. dollar, beating the previous record closing low of PHP 61.847 set on July 24, 2026. And it’s only the third quarter of 2026.

Also, our outstanding external (foreign) debt stood at USD 147.35 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026, according to data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

It is equivalent to approximately PHP 9,126,490,625,000, or PHP 9.13 trillion.

With a population of 117.8 million Filipinos, even those who aren’t born yet are already “indebted.”

Being buried in foreign debt will force the Philippines to spend a massive share of its money on loan payments instead of local needs.

This means our excessive external debt creates a “debt overhang” that slows down long-term economic growth and discourages stable investment.

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In terms of corruption, the Philippines is now reportedly ranked 120th out of 182 countries globally in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

As a leading global indicator published annually by Transparency International, the CPI measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption based on data from expert assessments and business executive surveys.

We received a score of 32 out of 100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean.

We may not be the most corrupt country in the world, but being ranked 120th is not something Filipinos all over the world should be proud of; the score falls well below the global average of 42.

To compound the matter, the Philippines performs near the lower end, ranking ahead of only Cambodia and Myanmar in the regional breakdown in Southeast Asia.

Due to entrenched political dynasties, weak public institutions, and high poverty rates that drive patronage politics, the Philippines is perceived as corrupt.

After the country gained independence in 1946, systems of graft and elite control rooted in the Spanish and American colonial eras persisted.

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Also, even if we are not at risk of the specific type of glacial-collapse or glacial-lake outburst flash flood that struck Nepal and Tibet recently, the Philippines faces a very high and frequent threat from severe monsoon- and typhoon-driven flash floods and debris flows.

The difference is that the catastrophic disaster along the Nepal-Tibet border was reportedly caused by a high-altitude “hazard cascade” – a collapsing Himalayan glacier and ice avalanche that created massive, sudden walls of mud and water without initial heavy rainfall.

We have a tropical maritime climate with high mountain ranges, such as the Cordillera Central, in the Philippines, but geological experts say the country does not have permanent alpine glaciers or glacial lakes capable of a glacial outburst.

Philippine flash floods are driven by intense tropical downpours from typhoons and the southwest monsoon (Habagat), while the Nepal event happened during clear skies because of an ice and rock collapse.

Local geological experts add that the Philippines experiences its own version of violent “debris flows” – mixtures of wet, concrete-like mud, rocks, and sand rushing down steep mountain slopes – such as those triggered by past severe storms and heavy rains.

Due to its geographical fragmentation and heavy exposure to extreme weather, the Philippines faces recurrent flooding emergencies in low-lying floodplains, mining regions, and rapidly urbanized river basins.

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WE are still currently in the Age of Pisces but in a transition period and moving slowly toward the Age of Aquarius.

The Age of Pisces is associated with the last 2,000 years, marked by traditional authority, spiritual sacrifice, and collective religious structures.

The Age of Aquarius, on the other hand, is associated with future innovation, global connectivity, technology, and group consciousness.

This multi-century crossover is viewed by most experts as a twilight phase in which Piscean traits fade and Aquarian traits emerge.

The Age of Aquarius is an astrological era linked to the slow shift of Earth’s axis known as the precession of the equinoxes. It marks a transition from Pisces to Aquarius and is associated with innovation, collective thinking, and global connectivity, according to Almanac.

It explains that something most people don’t know is that the positions of the planets in the zodiac signs are different astrologically from what they are astronomically.

If one were to look through a telescope at the celestial bodies, they would not be traversing the actual constellations the way astrologers say they are, the Almanac adds.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)