To our inspiring athletes: PADAYON!

Well-deserved medals.

Whether they won gold/silver/bronze or none at all, our Filipino athletes at the 33rd Southeast Asian Games in Thailand deserve our thanks and accolade for showing us all what and how inspiring hard work and performance are, especially if offered for our country, our people.

As of December 18, the Philippines ranked fourth in terms of total medals earned (219.), after Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. We are sixth in terms of gold medals won (39.).

In case you are interested, below are the events where the 39 gold medals were won by our Team Philippines, to serve as guide too for our Philippine Team to review which events they are strong or weak at:  1.) Taekwondo - Men’s Individual Freestyle Poomsae 2.) Swimming - Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay, 3.) Ju-jitsu - Women’s Ne-waza 48-kg, 4.) Ju-jitsu - Men’s Ne-waza 85-kg, 5.) Gymnastics - Women's Apparatus – Vault, Women's Modern - 60kg (demonstration sports.), 6.) Men's Baseball, 7.) Taekwondo - Women’s kyorugi - 49kg, 8.) Gymnastics - Men's Apparatus – Vault, 9.) Athletics - Men’s 110m Hurdles, 10.) Swimming - Women’s 100m Freestyle, 11.) Athletics - Men’s Decathlon, 12.) Judo - Men's 100kg, 13.) Swimming - Women’s 100m Backstroke, 14.) Extreme-Skateboarding - Women's Park Finals, 15.) Extreme-Skateboarding - Men's Park Finals, 16.) Wushu - Women’s taijiquan-taijijian, 17.) Judo - Mixed team, 18.) Weightlifting - Women’s, 19.) Wushu - Men’s taijiquan-taijijian, 20.) Practical Shooting - Men’s Standard Individual, 21.) Practical Shooting - Women’s Open Individual, 22.) Practical Shooting - Men's Production Optic Individual, 23.) Practical Shooting – Women's Production Optic Individual, 24.) Athletics - Men's 800m, 25.) Athletics - Women's 800m, 26.) Rowing - Women's Double Sculls, 27.) Kickboxing - Women’s Low Kick 48kg, 28.) Gymnastics - Women’s Individual All Around, 29.) Athletics - Men’s Pole Vault, 30.) Triathlon - All Women Relay, 31.) Triathlon - All Men Relay, 32.) Triathlon - Mixed Team Relay, 33.) Women’s Pin Weight 45kg, 34.) Men's Flyweight 51kg, 35.) Men’s Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, 36.) Modern Pentathlon - Laser Run Men’s Individual, 37.) Windsurfer - Men’s U19 IQFoil, 38.) Football - Women's Football, and, 39.) Tennis - Women's Singles.

Our athletes are also bonding among themselves, rallying, inspiring, supporting one another during their games. Such show of unity is also beautiful to behold as unity remains elusive within our own land and people.

Our athletes’ commitment to excel and to represent our country is a far contrast to those undeserving legislators in Congress whose main agenda is personal, prioritizing their private interests for one’s family and dynasty, never genuine public service for the Filipino people.

While BBM has called for Congress to prioritize the passage of four important bills, the Filipino people will need to scrutinize the contents of these bills that will be introduced, deliberated, decided on by both House of Representatives and the Senate.

The Filipino people will also need to review and check the newly-approved bicam version of the 2026 national budget.

What will the ?6.793 trillion budget for 2026 be used for? Who will benefit most from next year’s budget --the truly needy or the corrupt/abusive in government?

Critics of the Bicam’s approved/proposed 2026 bicam call on the Filipino people to review and challenge “pork”, unprogrammed appropriations in the proposed 2026, the confidential and intelligence funds, as well as funds for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict for being unconstitutional.

Critics also call for the public to denounce the continuity of “political patronage” and to question the undeserved huge OVP allocation in the proposed 2026 budget.

Filipinos should remain vigilant and never again allow the abusive/corrupt in government to privately siphon any public funds intended for millions of our impoverished Filipinos who so deserve to have happy/better/God-blessed Christmas and new year from now on!