The hearings are broadcast live: lawmakers thundering at each other, congressmen pounding tables, television anchors counting the votes like it’s a championship match. Meanwhile, the same country that funds the spectacle continues to wait for action on runaway prices, failing flood control, and corruption that seems to travel faster than the monsoon. Watching it, I cannot escape the uneasy thought that many of the people entrusted to guard the public interest are busy guarding something else.

I have followed politics long enough to know that public office in the Philippines has always been a complicated mix of service and ambition. But lately the balance seems to tilt in one direction. The language of public duty still fills speeches—those long, echoing words about nation, sacrifice, and people—but when the dust settles, the results often look suspiciously like political positioning. The public agenda gets crowded out by personal score-settling, coalition maneuvering, and the endless choreography of the next election.

One sees it most clearly in how time and attention are spent. The country wrestles with issues that are neither abstract nor distant: rising food prices that gnaw at family budgets, infrastructure projects that collapse under the weight of corruption allegations, and communities that flood whenever the skies decide to open up. Yet the loudest debates in our halls of power often revolve around who embarrasses whom, who gains advantage, and who emerges stronger in the shifting alliances of Manila politics. It is difficult not to feel that the priorities are upside down.

What makes the situation even more frustrating is that the government’s resources are immense. The national budget now runs into trillions of pesos, a sum so large that ordinary citizens can only grasp it by imagining endless columns of zeros. In theory, that money represents classrooms, hospitals, roads, and disaster protection. In practice, we keep hearing about investigations into overpriced projects, missing funds, and the peculiar habit of public works washing away with the first serious rain. The problem is not the lack of money; it is the lack of faithful stewardship.

I sometimes think of government as a large house that all Filipinos are forced to share. The officials we elect are supposed to be caretakers—people entrusted with the keys to the pantry and the safety of the roof. But too often the caretakers behave like tenants who are merely passing through, grabbing whatever they can carry before the lease expires. When public office becomes a temporary marketplace for influence, the national house inevitably grows shabby.

Of course, not every official fits this bleak picture. There are still public servants who work quietly, refusing to treat the government like a personal business venture. But they are often drowned out by the louder figures whose political instincts resemble those of professional gamblers—always calculating odds, always looking for the next move that benefits their camp. The tragedy is that governance begins to resemble a chess match when what the country really needs is simple, steady management.

As a citizen, I find myself caught between irritation and weary humor. We Filipinos have developed a strange tolerance for political theatrics; we watch hearings the way some people watch afternoon dramas. Yet beneath the laughter lies a deeper worry. Every moment wasted on political maneuvering is a moment stolen from the serious work of running a nation that faces storms, economic pressures, and a rapidly changing world.
Perhaps the answer is less dramatic than the problem. Public office must return to its plain meaning: a position of trust, not a ladder for personal glory. That shift will not happen through speeches alone; it will require citizens who pay closer attention, voters who remember longer than a campaign season, and officials who understand that power borrowed from the people must eventually be returned—with interest—in the form of honest service.

THAT’S Jesus Christ, of course. That image of him is highlighted in that gospel episode where Christ, tired from his journey, stopped by a well in Sichar and met a Samaritan woman whom he later converted simply by talking about thirst and water. (cfr. Jn 4,5-42)
It’s a story that draws attention to the fact that God’s interventions in our life can take place in very ordinary, simple occasions. In fact, it occurs all the time, irrespective of how things are.

It brings to mind the truth of our faith that our deepest longing and thirst for unending joy, peace and fulfillment can be satisfied in the ordinary little things of our daily affairs.
We should just learn how to find Christ in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. This is not a gratuitous, baseless assertion, an act of fantasizing, of hunting lions in the corridors of the house.

This is as real and true as can be. Of course, it requires faith, but if we care to listen to faith, we will, in fact, find it reasonable and practicable, not something quixotic, cocooned in the realm of the abstract, the absurd and the impossible.

Christ is God made man. As God, he is involved in our creation, in our getting into existence. As such, since it’s existence that is involved in creation, he cannot withdraw from us, since by doing so would be like God withdrawing our existence. Since we obviously exist, ergo, he is in and with us by the very fact of our existence.

As God and man, he is our redeemer, the one who, in a manner of speaking, would re-do or re-create us after our original state of humanity has been damaged by our sin.

As such, since we all need to be redeemed at all times, he neither can withdraw from us, since by doing so would be like this God-and-man, Jesus Christ, withdrawing from our redemption. Since we need to be redeemed always, Christ is also always with us. He actually cannot help but redeem us, because of his great love for us.

We need to be more aware of this reality about ourselves, since we often do not realize it, dominated as we are with the merely material and sensible realities and with what is the here-and-now and what is immediately felt. We many times fail to go beyond this level.
As the living water that springs into life eternal, Christ is the only one that can satisfy our spiritual thirst and our deepest longing for connection with God. He offers us a life that never ends even while we are still in this world. He effects in us some kind of inner transformation.

And like that Samaritan woman who, when she discovered who Christ really was, went around inviting her friends to see Christ, let us also be eager to bring our friends and everyone we meet to Christ, telling them that Christ offers us the ultimate joy and fulfillment that everyone aspires for.

Let’s keep this apostolic zeal burning and spreading, making it as contagious as possible since what Christ offers us really gives us what is truly best for us. Like Christ, let us take advantage of all the ordinary, little events and circumstances of our life to make our friends meet Christ, the living water that springs into life eternal!

Eastern Visayas must recognize that global conflicts are not just “their problem.” They are ours too, in ways subtle but significant!

When news breaks of escalating conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel, many in Eastern Visayas might shrug it off as something happening “far away.” After all, the Middle East feels worlds apart from our islands. But distance does not guarantee safety. In today’s interconnected world, wars ripple outward, and even regions like ours—quiet, agricultural, and coastal—can feel the aftershocks.

Eastern Visayas is not immune to global economic tremors. Wars in the Middle East often drive-up oil prices. For a region where transportation fuels fishing boats, jeepneys, and farm machinery, higher fuel costs mean higher food prices and tighter household budgets. Inflation hits hardest in provinces where poverty rates are already high.

Eastern Visayas must recognize that global conflicts are not just “their problem.” They are ours too, in ways subtle but significant. Preparedness means strengthening local economies, diversifying energy sources, and ensuring support systems for OFWs. It also means cultivating awareness—because ignorance is not protection.

The Philippines has long been a strategic ally of the United States. If the conflict escalates, our archipelago could be drawn into military posturing. Bases in Luzon and Mindanao may see heightened activity, and while Eastern Visayas is not a military hub, the fear of spillover—terrorist retaliation.

Wars abroad often trigger refugee crises. While the Philippines may not be the primary destination, our overseas workers in the Middle East are directly at risk. Eastern Visayas has thousands of OFWs whose remittances sustain families here. If they are forced to return suddenly, local economies could suffer.

As the war heats up, the uncertainties of things come to the fore. Maybe we need to be involved by way of preparations and its NOT out of tune with the realities. Harayo man an AWAY HAN GYERA, maapektohan gihap kita!