Final… for now

By Herman M. Lagon

Somewhere between the drumbeat of Dinagyang and the Monday-morning rush of regular life, we have developed a quiet survival skill: reading the government’s mood. You plan around announcements the way you plan around weather. You check if the policy is “final-final” or “final for now.” You tell a friend who runs a small bar, a jeepney driver, or a public school teacher to wait one more day before printing tarpaulins, adjusting schedules, or borrowing money for a compliance requirement. It sounds funny until it becomes expensive. Governance, after all, is supposed to reduce uncertainty, not turn it into a daily hobby.

Flip-flopping is not always a sin. Not every change is incompetence. Some are corrections that prevent harm. But when reversals come often and without clear reason, governance starts to feel like a gamble rather than a guide. We all can live with hard decisions; we do it every day. What wears people down is being asked to adjust, again and again, to rules that keep moving while still being told to trust the process. Trust is not built by volume or speed. It is built by clarity, consistency, and the quiet discipline of following through.

Take the recent Dinagyang episodes in Iloilo City. An executive order first limited alcohol sales and public drinking hours, framed as a safety measure for a massive festival crowd. Later on, the curfew was lifted and 24-hour sales were allowed after public and business pressure. In the same token, rules on fees for moving vendors shifted, and even simple things—like charging for photos with Dinagyang costumes—came and went in advisories and posts. Both sides had a point—order and public safety matter, and so do tradition and livelihoods. The same push-and-pull showed up in the back-and-forth over banderitas: removed to promote order and safety, then selectively allowed again after public reaction. The adjustments themselves were understandable. What unsettled people was the speed. It felt like the rules were still being written. In festival time, two days already mean money spent, schedules fixed, and plans locked in.

The damage feels harsher when it reaches the poor. In late 2025, reports said some DSWD aid beneficiaries in Iloilo City were pressured to give up large portions of their cash assistance, prompting complaints and cases. For those surviving day to day, these shifts are not administrative details. They decide meals, medicine, and dignity. When messages change without warning, the burden lands where there is no cushion.

Jeepney drivers have lived with the same instability. Consolidation deadlines keep shifting, and transport groups warn that repeated extensions hurt cooperatives that took loans in good faith. The driver feels interest ticking up while rules move. The commuter just hopes today’s ride is still allowed tomorrow. Uncertainty does not feel flexible. It feels exhausting.

Sometimes flip-flops are not even about shifting policy, but about shifting narratives. In 2025, debates around Iloilo City’s real property tax increase and its possible link to inflation turned into a public row, with claims and counterclaims about what was said, what was meant, and what was “political maneuvering.” Tax policy is complicated; inflation is complicated; attribution is complicated. Still, citizens do not experience “complication” in a vacuum. They experience it as grocery math that no longer adds up, rent that creeps, and a sense that officials speak in paragraphs when the public needs sentences. When messaging shifts sharply, trust takes the hit. When trust is damaged, even correct explanations arrive with suspicion. The OECD has argued for years that trust is not ornamental; it is a working asset that affects whether people comply, reforms stick, and societies hold together.

Infrastructure has become the place where people joke just to survive the waiting. Days ago, DPWH leaders again promised to finish the long-delayed Aganan Flyover by Christmas 2026, after years of residents calling the disruption a kalbaryo. Promises matter, but memory matters too. Each reset does not feel like a fresh plan; it reopens old disappointments. Teachers see it in late students and dusty uniforms. Vendors feel it when foot traffic disappears. Predictability is not a technical detail. It is the difference between a plan people can live with and one they brace against.

Environmental governance cuts even deeper. Recent reports on investigations into mangrove and coastal land classifications raised a familiar unease: paper can say one thing while communities know another. Mangroves are not abstract assets; they protect homes, feed families, and soften storms. When classifications appear flexible, people worry less about process and more about power. The same anxiety shows up nationally, from the transfer and court-ordered return of PhilHealth funds to long-debated Supreme Court reversals. Even when institutions correct themselves, the public absorbs the drama as instability. Rules begin to feel firm only when someone finally objects loudly enough, and that slow erosion of trust costs more than any delayed project ever will.

Not all flip-flops come from bad intent. Some come from what scholars call decision noise—judgments pulled around by pressure, timing, and inconsistent standards (Kahneman et al., 2021). In government, it shows up as rules that change every few days. Leaders may be trying to respond quickly or please everyone, but citizens only feel the shake. The cure is not louder messaging, but calmer judgment and decisions made with care.

Teachers see the cost immediately. Headlines become classroom debates, reversals become lessons on evidence, and viral clips test discernment. In schools, flip-flopping means lost time, transport issues, and students absorbing the idea that rules bend easily.

Not every change is incompetence. Some are course corrections. But frequent, unexplained reversals teach citizens to treat governance as a gamble. Filipinos can respect firmness. What erodes confidence is being asked to adjust endlessly to uncertainty.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a ‘student of and for life’ who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.