The Philippines in 2026: What Is Our Major Challenge Today?

The Philippines in 2026: What Is Our Major Challenge Today?

I saw a chart online this week: "Countries and Their Major Challenges." United States - gun violence. China and Japan - aging population. India - quality job creation. Pakistan - water scarcity. Brazil - Amazon deforestation. Twenty countries listed.

The Philippines was not on that list. So I asked myself, if we were No. 21, what would our challenge be?

I was born in the Philippines during the Commonwealth era. I worked for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, retired in 2002, and have been a snowbird since - winters in California, summers in Marinduque, the previous several decades. At 91 nearing 92, I have seen the country go through war, martial law, people power, and now this.

If that chart allowed only one challenge, it would be misleading for us. We don't have one major challenge. We have five that are connected.

1. The Economy Has Slowed Down Again

In October, the World Bank lowered our growth forecast to 3.7 percent for 2026, down from 4.4 percent in 2025. Inflation was 6.2 percent in July 2026 and is projected at 5.8 percent for the whole year. Reuters reported the government itself cut its forecast, citing a graft scandal that slowed government spending and an energy crisis. For ordinary families, that means what I hear from my relatives in Marinduque - higher fuel, higher food, less money left. 

The good news hidden in that bad news: the World Bank reclassified the Philippines this year as upper-middle income, with a GNI per capita of $4,850. We crossed a threshold. But the poverty rate is still 55.2 percent under that upper-middle standard. That is the real challenge - we are classified as richer, but more than half still live as poor. 

2. Energy and Cost of Living

In a recent survey, 92% of respondents from the Philippines cited reliance on fossil fuel imports as our top economic vulnerability. When oil prices go up in the Middle East, tricycle fare goes up in Boac. We are an island nation that imports almost all our fuel.

That is why brownouts and fuel prices hurt more in the Philippines than in the United States. My old refrigerator in Marinduque costs more to run now than it did three years ago.

3. Climate and Environment Is No Longer Seasonal

The chart lists Japan's aging and Bangladesh's flooding. For us, it is both climate and daily environment.

Reports this year list our critical environmental issues as deforestation, water pollution, soil degradation, urban flooding, typhoons and rising sea levels. Over 70% of our rivers are polluted. In June 2026, PAGASA warned of a very strong El Niño bringing droughts, food insecurity and power shortages.In Marinduque, we know this. When it floods, it floods the low houses. When it is dry, the wells go salty.

4. Jobs and The Young People Leaving

The Philippines still has unemployment hitting 3 million reported this year, and that ripple affects tourism, airlines, and families dependent on OFW money. Our challenge is not just "quality job creation" like India. It is keeping quality jobs in the country so our nurses, seafarers, and IT graduates don't have to leave.

5. Governance and Trust

The BTI 2026 report says under President Marcos Jr. there have been slight improvements in human rights, but significant challenges persist. And analysts still put the Philippines at high risk for political instability because of supply chain and energy security issues. For me at 91, this is the oldest story. Projects get delayed. Money disappears. Then growth is cut not because we don't have money, but because we didn't spend it well.

So What Is Our One Major Challenge?

If I had to write one line for that chart, like "Gun violence" for America, I would not write one thing.

I would write: "Making upper-middle income mean middle-class life."

We have the income classification. We have the talent. What we don't have yet is affordable housing, cheap and stable electricity, clean rivers, and jobs that pay enough that you don't have to go to Dubai or Walnut Creek to find a better life.

At 91 nearing 92, I am hopeful. I have one blog with nearly 3 million views and seven more over a million. Most of my readers are from the Philippines and from Filipinos abroad. You write to me that you are worried. I tell you what I learned after 91 years: the Philippines always faces a crisis, and Filipinos always find a way through with family, faith, and resourcefulness.

What do you think is the biggest challenge we face today? Leave a comment. I read them every morning with my coffee in Walnut Creek.

• David B. Katague, Walnut Creek, California and Boac, Marinduque, Philippines
  October 2026

My Photo of the Day:

Do you have a Favorite? Mine is Number 7!  

Finally, Do you Know that....

Binondo in Manila is widely considered the oldest Chinatown in the world.

It was established in 1594 by Spanish colonial authorities as a settlement for Catholic Chinese residents, and it grew into a center of trade that still thrives today.

Today it is known for its food, temples, and family-run shops.

Ray Kurzweil Predicts Humans Could Begin Overcoming Aging by 2030

Ray Kurzweil Predicts Humans Could Begin Overcoming Aging by 2030

Futurist Ray Kurzweil believes humanity could begin overcoming some of the effects of aging around 2030. The idea is not that people will literally become immortal, but that advances in medicine and biotechnology could eventually extend human lifespans at an increasingly rapid pace.

A former Google AI researcher, Kurzweil has made more than 140 public predictions about technology. According to a review conducted by Kurzweil himself, 86% of 147 predictions he examined had either come true or were essentially correct. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Technology for his contributions to computing.

In his book The Singularity Is Near, Kurzweil introduced the concept of “longevity escape velocity.” The hypothesis suggests that medical technology could eventually advance to the point where a person gains more than one additional year of remaining life expectancy for every year they continue to age.

One technology Kurzweil has discussed is nanobots—microscopic machines that, in the future, could potentially travel through the human body, monitor health problems, repair cellular damage, and assist in fighting diseases.

Kurzweil has also become known for several technological predictions that later came close to reality. In 1990, he predicted that a computer would defeat the reigning world chess champion before the end of the decade. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov.

He also anticipated the widespread adoption of portable computers, wireless communication, and voice-based interfaces.

Kurzweil further predicts that artificial intelligence could reach human-level capabilities around 2029, while by 2045, humans and machines could become deeply integrated.

These predictions do not mean that immortality is guaranteed. Kurzweil's broader argument is that aging, which is currently considered an unavoidable biological process, could eventually become something that advanced technology is capable of slowing, managing, or even partially reversing.

In short, the vision is not “immortality by 2030,” but a future in which medicine advances quickly enough to dramatically change how humans experience aging and disease.

Meanwhile, Here are the Signature Dishes of Some Philippine Provinces

Marinduque is not in the List: What Do you think is Marinduque Signature Dish?

My Photo of the Day: 

The Philippines is not in the List. What Do you Think the Philippines is Best Noted For? Like to hear from You!  

My Reel of the Day: A Beautiful orchestral Arrangement of Autumn Leaves

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1478477624129238

Loida Nicolas Lewis-in My Filipino-American Pride List

Reprinted from My Facebook Page

In December 1993, two hours before a board meeting, a Filipina lawyer from Sorsogon called the man running her late husband's company. "Jean, I'm taking over," she told him, according to TIME.

Her name is Loida Nicolas Lewis. The company was TLC Beatrice, a food business that sold more than a billion dollars a year and was known as the biggest Black-owned company in America.

She had never run a company before, and Wall Street expected her to fail.

So how did a girl from Sorsogon end up in that chair?

A GIRL FROM SORSOGON

Loida was born in Sorsogon in 1942, during World War II. Her father built a string of businesses, from construction and furniture to farming and entertainment.

She was the first daughter, after two older brothers. She studied in Manila, at St. Theresa's College and then at the University of the Philippines College of Law.

She passed the Philippine bar in 1968. That same year, she went abroad with her mother.

In New York, a blind date changed her life. He was Reginald F. Lewis, a young Black lawyer fresh out of Harvard Law School.

In her memoir, she says she asked him what it was like to be a Black man in America. His answer was, "I'm international!"

They married in Manila in 1969 and had two daughters, Leslie and Christina.

THE LAWYER THEY WOULDN'T HIRE

In New York, she worked for a civil rights law group and for Manhattan Legal Services.

In 1974, she passed the New York bar. She is often described as the first Asian woman to pass it without going to law school in America.

Then she applied to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and they turned her down. She sued for discrimination, saying her race, her sex and where she came from were held against her.

She won. The judge ordered the agency to hire her and give her back pay.

She worked there as a lawyer for about ten years, until 1988. She even co-wrote a popular guide called How to Get a Green Card.

I love that part. The office that didn't want her ended up with her writing the book on its paperwork.

THE BILLION-DOLLAR DEAL

Meanwhile, Reginald became a Wall Street dealmaker. In 1987, he bought the overseas food businesses of a company called Beatrice for $985 million, mostly with borrowed money.

He named it TLC Beatrice. It became the biggest Black-owned company in the United States.

Then, in January 1993, the company announced that Reginald had brain cancer.

He died the next day. He was 50.

"When Mr. Lewis died, I knew I would be mother and father to them," she said years later about her girls.

His life story came out in 1995, finished by a journalist from what he had written. It was called Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?

"JEAN, I'M TAKING OVER"

For about a year, Reginald's company was run by Jean Fugett Jr., a lawyer and former football player. Loida controlled more than half of the stock, and in December 1993 she made that phone call.

By early 1994, she was chairwoman and chief executive. She was now in charge of dozens of companies in more than 30 countries.

TIME reported that Wall Street's smart money thought she would surely flop. She started with the things everyone could see.

She sold the private jet. She got rid of the limousines and other perks.

Then she went after the parts that were losing money. TIME counted 500 jobs cut, including half of the corporate staff, and money-losing businesses closed.

"I don't take any crap," she told TIME. I love that line, coming from a woman TIME also described as scholarly and deeply religious.

In 1994, the company made its first significant profit in three years.

A CHAPTER ENDING

Over the next few years, she sold the company's big pieces, including its French grocery stores. In May 1999, the board approved selling what was left and paying the money to the shareholders.

"A chapter in his life is ending, so it's hard," she told The Baltimore Sun. She said her husband's goal was to make the company worth more to its owners and pay them out, and that she had taken that goal on as her own.

THE GIRL FROM SORSOGON, TODAY

Outside the company, Loida built something else. She helped start the National Federation of Filipino American Associations in 1997, and she helped found the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

She has led the foundation named after her husband, which has given to schools, universities and museums. In 2023, in her eighties, she published her own memoir.

Its title is Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? She just dropped one word from his.

She is in her eighties now and still speaking. In May 2026, around the Asian Hall of Fame gala in Los Angeles, she told the Asian Journal, "I am a girl from the province of Sorsogon."

At the gala, she told the women in the room, "If you don't know how to do the job, you will learn how to do the job. Don't say 'Oh, I am not ready.' You'll never be ready."

More than thirty years after that phone call, that is still her advice.

Source: TIME, 1996; The Baltimore Sun, 1999; UPI, 1993; International Directory of Company Histories; Black Enterprise; The Filipino Expat; African American Registry; Asian Journal, 2026; Carnegie Corporation of New York; Filipina Women's Network; The FilAm, 2023 →

Why Might an Adult Child Stop Valuing or Speaking to Their Mother?

It is sad but this subject resonates with Me. 

Why Might an Adult Child Stop Valuing or Speaking to Their Mother?

Seven Psychological Reasons and a Lesson About Family Relationships

I recently came across the image above with a provocative question:

“Why doesn't a child value their mother?” The question made me stop and think.

At 91, I have lived long enough to see many kinds of family relationships. I have been a son, a husband, a father, a grandfather and now a great-grandfather. I have also watched friendships and family relationships change over the decades.

Most mothers and fathers hope that their children will remain close to them throughout life.

But that doesn't always happen.

I know of one family in which three adult children no longer talk to their mother. I don't know everything that happened inside that family, and I certainly would not presume to decide who is right or wrong.

But their situation made me wonder: How can a child who was once so dependent upon a mother eventually become so distant from her?

Psychology gives us several possible explanations.

1. They may have felt emotionally neglected

A mother can provide food, clothing, education and a home—and still fail to provide the emotional connection a child needs.

Children need to feel that someone listens to them, understands them and takes their feelings seriously.

A child who repeatedly thinks, "Mom doesn't understand me," may eventually stop trying to communicate.

What begins as childhood disappointment can become emotional distance in adulthood.

2. They may have experienced too much criticism

Some parents believe criticism will make their children stronger. But constant criticism can have the opposite effect.

A child who repeatedly hears that he or she is not good enough, smart enough, successful enough or responsible enough may eventually protect themselves by creating distance.

Sometimes an adult child doesn't stop loving a parent.

They simply stop wanting to be around someone who makes them feel inadequate.

3. They may feel controlled

There is a difference between guidance and control.

Parents naturally want to protect their children. But even after children become adults, some parents continue trying to make decisions for them.

Who should they marry? Where should they live? What career should they choose?

How should they raise their own children?

Eventually, an adult child may decide that the only way to establish independence is to create boundaries or even cut off communication.

4. Old childhood wounds may never have been resolved

This may be one of the most important reasons. Parents sometimes say:

“That happened 30 years ago. Why can't you just forget it?”

But emotional memories don't always disappear simply because many years have passed.

Perhaps there was favoritism between siblings. Perhaps there was a divorce.

Perhaps the child felt abandoned. Perhaps something was said during childhood that the parent has completely forgotten, but the child never did.

Time can heal some wounds. But time alone does not necessarily heal every wound.

Sometimes the wound needs to be acknowledged first.

5. They may have different memories of the same childhood

This is something I have learned as I have grown older.

Two people can experience the same family event and remember it completely differently.

A mother might remember: “I sacrificed everything for my children.”

Her child might remember: “My mother was never there when I needed her.”

Both people may sincerely believe their version.

Memory is not a perfect recording of the past. It is influenced by emotion, personality and individual experience.

That is why family arguments about the past can sometimes become impossible to resolve.

6. A spouse or partner may influence the relationship

When children become adults, they form new families of their own.

A husband, wife or partner can sometimes become an important influence on how an adult child views his or her parents.

Sometimes that influence is healthy. Sometimes it can increase existing family tensions.

An adult child may begin seeing the mother differently after hearing a spouse's perspective about past family conflicts.

This doesn't necessarily mean the spouse is responsible.

It simply means that family relationships become more complicated as people grow older.

7. Sometimes distance becomes easier than reconciliation

This may be the saddest reason of all. Family conflicts can continue for years.

A phone call is not returned. Then another one isn't returned.

Christmas passes without a visit. A birthday comes and goes.

Eventually, silence becomes a habit.

After enough time, both sides may become afraid or unwilling to make the first move.

The mother may think: "My children don't want me."

The children may think: "Our mother doesn't understand why we're hurt."

And the wall becomes higher with every passing year.

But Does This Mean the Mother Is Always to Blame?

Absolutely not. This is where I would be very careful with the question in the original image.

An adult child can also be unreasonable. Some children become selfish.

Some become resentful over money or inheritance.

Some blame their parents for problems that were not really the parents' fault.

Some are influenced by other people. And sometimes parents have done everything they reasonably could and the adult child still chooses estrangement.

Parenthood does not come with a guarantee of gratitude.

Nor does being a child mean that everything our parents did was automatically right.

Family relationships are complicated because they involve human beings with memories, personalities, disappointments, expectations and imperfections.

What I Have Learned at 91

Perhaps reaching 91 gives me a different perspective on this subject.

When we are young, we tend to think we have plenty of time to settle our differences.

When we become older, we discover that time is one thing we cannot replace.

I have lost my wife, Macrine, after more than 63 years of marriage. I have watched our children become adults and create families and lives of their own.

I have learned that children eventually have to become their own people.

And parents eventually have to let them. The greatest gift a parent can give an adult child may not be advice.

It may be respect. Respect for their decisions. Respect for their boundaries.

Respect for their different opinions. And perhaps most importantly, the willingness to say:

“I may not completely understand how you feel, but I am willing to listen.”

And What About That Family of Three?

I keep thinking about the family I mentioned at the beginning. Three adult children who no longer speak to their mother.

I don't know what happened behind closed doors. Perhaps the mother made mistakes.

Perhaps the children made mistakes. Perhaps everyone contributed to the breakdown.

Maybe there were wounds that were never properly discussed. I would not want to judge them from the outside.

But I do wonder whether, somewhere underneath all the anger and silence, there might still be a desire for reconciliation.

Sometimes someone has to take the first step. It might be the mother. It might be one of the children.

It might begin with nothing more complicated than: “I miss you.”

Or: “I'm sorry.” Or even: “Can we talk?”

At 91, I have learned that being right is sometimes less important than being connected.

And when it comes to family, there are some bridges we should try very hard not to burn.

A David at 91 thought

We enter this world needing our parents. We leave home needing our freedom.

And somewhere between those two moments, we must learn how to love one another
without controlling one another.

A mother is not perfect. Neither is a child. We are all human.

And sometimes the greatest gift we can give our family is not another argument about the past, but the courage to open the door one more time.

Because tomorrow is never promised.

AI Overview

A child may fail to value their mother due to a mix of unconscious psychological patterns, family dynamics, and developmental stages.

Key Psychological Reasons

Invisible Constant Love: A mother's steady, daily presence and consistent support can become invisible to a child over time, making her feel taken for granted. 
A Safe Space for Emotions: Children often direct their pent-up anger, stress, and raw frustrations at their mothers because they subconsciously view them as a source of unconditional acceptance.
The Individuation Process: As children grow, they must separate and build their own independent identities, which can temporarily manifest as emotional distance or rejection of parental influence.
Learned Disrespect from the Environment: Children closely observe family dynamics. If they witness a father or other household figures talk down to, interrupt, or disregard the mother, they internalize that behavior and mimic the disrespect.
Lack of Self-Respect Modeling: Mothers who completely erase their own needs to serve everyone else can accidentally teach children that self-sacrifice is mandatory and that the mother’s boundaries hold no weight.
Premature Peer and External Influences: During adolescent shifts, such as around age 14, children naturally begin questioning authority, and outside peer groups can displace family values if strong boundaries are missing.
Unmet Expectations and Unresolved Wounds: If a mother is emotionally distant, hypercritical, or inconsistent, the child develops an insecure attachment style, which can harden into resentment or emotional detachment.
Lastly, My Photo of the Day:

MY FAVORITE IS NUMBER 3, FROM MARINDUQUE SERVED AT CHATEAU DU MER