I promised myself I was done.

Finished.

Retired.

Emotionally pensioned off from Philippine politics.

I had decided – quite sensibly, I thought – that I would stop watching what was happening back home.

No more news.

No more political drama.

No more headlines so absurd one initially assumes they were written by satirists with unresolved anger issues.

I was going to focus on life here.

Work.

Family.

School.

The practical concerns of middle age.

Blood pressure.

Bills.

Graduate school deadlines.

The American ritual of paying alarming amounts of money for things that somehow still arrive requiring assembly and emotional resilience.

I told myself:

Enough.

You left.

You built a life elsewhere.

Protect your peace.

And for a while, I meant it.

Then I made the catastrophic mistake of reading the news.

A poor decision.

Like texting an ex.

Or believing campaign promises.

Or assuming public officials are consistently embarrassed by incompetence.

And suddenly there it was again:

That familiar heaviness.

That sadness.

Not outrage.

Outrage is youthful.

Outrage requires energy.

Outrage believes things will change if enough people become sufficiently angry.

At my age, one develops a more mature emotional response.

Exhausted disappointment.

The kind usually reserved for relatives who repeatedly borrow money while explaining why this time will be different.

Because despite everything, I still care.

Annoyingly so.

Painfully so.

Against all practical logic.

Which is perhaps the tragedy of being Filipino abroad.

You leave physically.

Emotionally, however, part of you remains stubbornly stuck in traffic somewhere near EDSA.

You carry the country with you.

The good memories.

The food.

The language.

The humor.

The strange ability of Filipinos to laugh in situations where other nationalities would already be setting things on fire.

And unfortunately, you also carry the heartbreak.

Because people you love are still there.

Friends.

Relatives.

Former classmates.

Ordinary Filipinos trying to survive inflation, corruption, political theater, underfunded systems, bureaucratic dysfunction, and governments that occasionally behave like a badly coordinated group project led by confident underperformers.

And this is the part that hurts:

Filipinos did not deserve this.

No.

Let me be blunter.

Filipinos deserved better than this.

The ordinary Filipino wakes up early.

Works hard.

Pays taxes.

Endures traffic capable of testing spiritual discipline.

Survives salaries that require Olympic-level budgeting.

Raises families.

Takes care of relatives.

Sacrifices.

Adapts.

Endures.

The national talent, frankly, is survival.

Typhoon?

Still functioning.

Flood?

Still functioning.

Government incompetence?

Still functioning.

Power outage?

Still somehow functioning.

Internet slow enough to qualify as historical reenactment?

Still functioning.

At this point resilience has become less a virtue and more a survival requirement.

But here is the problem:

Governments sometimes mistake resilience for permission.

People endure suffering, therefore suffering becomes normalized.

People adapt, therefore institutions stop improving.

People survive, therefore leaders assume things cannot be that bad.

It is an astonishing arrangement.

The citizen suffers.

The politician explains.

Everybody claps during speeches.

Nothing changes.

Repeat every election cycle.

And before someone says:

“Well, people voted for them.”

Please.

That explanation has the intellectual sophistication of a wet sock.

Democracy matters, yes.

But elections alone do not explain dynasties, patronage, disinformation, weak institutions, systemic poverty, political theater masquerading as governance, and the national habit of mistaking charisma for competence.

Entire generations inherit broken systems and are then blamed for not fixing them fast enough.

Marvelous logic.

Like handing someone a leaking boat and criticizing their rowing technique.

And perhaps that is why overseas Filipinos carry a particular sadness.

You leave hoping life improves back home.

You want roads that work.

Hospitals that function.

Schools that prepare people for more than survival.

Governments that occasionally remember public service contains the word service.

You want people to stop leaving.

Because no country should need to export millions of its citizens simply to survive economically.

Think about that.

Entire families separated.

Parents missing birthdays.

Children growing up through video calls.

Grandparents aging while sons and daughters send remittances from oceans away.

A nation powered partly by sacrifice exported abroad.

And still people remain astonishingly loyal.

Which brings me to the uncomfortable thought many Filipinos quietly carry:

We Filipinos love our country. I am just no longer sure the country loves us back.

Yes, yes, I know.

Countries are not sentient.

They do not send flowers.

Governments do not suddenly wake up and apologize for decades of dysfunction.

But institutions matter.

Policies matter.

Leadership matters.

And sometimes it feels as though ordinary Filipinos are trapped in a relationship where only one side keeps making sacrifices.

Work harder.

Sacrifice more.

Be patient.

Adapt.

Endure.

Smile.

Repeat.

The national development strategy occasionally appears to be:

“Have you tried being resilient?”

As though resilience were an infrastructure plan.

As though patriotism could replace competent governance.

As though suffering indefinitely were proof of character rather than evidence something has gone profoundly wrong.

And perhaps that is the saddest realization of all.

Filipinos still love the country.

Stubbornly.

Hopelessly.

Romantically, even.

We defend it.

Miss it.

Dream about it.

Criticize it with family-level brutality while becoming oddly protective when outsiders oversimplify it.

Because despite everything—

the corruption,

the absurdity,

the disappointments,

the endless national talent for electing confidence over competence—

we still hope.

And that may be the cruelest part.

Hope.

Hope keeps people emotionally invested long after reason suggests they should quietly disengage.

So yes.

I broke my promise.

I said I would stop writing about Philippine politics.

I said I would focus on our lives here.

I said I would stop caring.

But sadness has a way of reopening doors you thought you had locked.

Because no matter how long one has lived abroad, heartbreak still arrives whenever home hurts.

And right now—

home looks tired.

So do its people.

And frankly, they deserved better.