by Paul Joshua Nones

Times are changing, and the old manners of thought are losing their grip on the national imagination.

Generation Z—those born from 1997 to 2012—will inherit whatever remains of a country shaped by decades of political compromise, corruption, and economic weakness. The question is no longer whether the youth are prepared to lead.

The real question is whether the Philippines they inherit will be a Philippines worth inheriting at all.

Gen Z came of age in a world of permanent connection. Their political awakening did not begin in classrooms or on the streets but on screens that delivered global conversations straight into their hands.

Unlike earlier generations, they grew up with unfiltered access to progressive, centrist, conservative, and even ‘radical’ worldviews. Yet this broad lens also exposed them to a recurring truth: Philippine politics has refused to evolve.

What they saw was a system straining under its own failures, sustained by an unending Pork Barrel culture and a pattern of scandal so frequent that no one seems to be as outraged as they should be.

As recent as 2021 alone, the Commission on Audit flagged over ₱1.4 trillion in mismanaged government funds. Crises too of the PDAF, PhilHealth, and Pharmally angered the public for a moment, then faded too quickly from peoples’ memory. And now, up to ₱1.1 trillion in flood control funds may have been lost to political greed.

The worst part is not the corruption itself, but our numbness to it. The Filipino forgot, and chose to forget.

Political dynasties make change even harder. Around 70 percent of district legislators come from entrenched families. In the current 20th Congress, over 80 percent of representatives belong to political clans. Elections look like choices but are just emptied routines.

Economic structures mirror the same elite capture.

The padrino system – who you know and not what you know – determines access, mobility, and success in one’s career; privilege that masquerades as merit. 

An entire young generation grew up knowing that even their best efforts may never overcome a system designed to keep them in place. Keeping new graduates small if not jobless without their backer. 

Economic conditions intensify this disillusionment. By September 2025, the national debt reached ₱17.46 trillion, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio past the 60 percent vulnerability threshold. Inflation has outpaced stagnant wages. The real value of the minimum wage has currently fallen by 14 percent since 2018. Meanwhile, condominium prices in Metro Manila continue to jump, placing homeownership beyond the reach of most young fresh graduates.

Surveys across Southeast Asia show Filipino Gen Zs as among the most financially anxious, and with the least trust in their institutions. Democracy, to them, feels less like a promise and more like a disappointment.

This political fatigue is further reshaping the ideological landscape here and elsewhere.

Across the world, societies are experiencing the same shift: old liberal and conservative frameworks can no longer explain worsening inequality, broken governments, economic recession, or failing public services. The old systems of thought are dying as the young begin to hate.

In the U.S., polarization deepens between the left and the right. Europe grapples with rising nationalist movements with the failures of the E.U. in foreign policies. Asia faces assertive nationalism and geopolitical instability. With over 60 elections worldwide in 2025, nearly half of humanity will vote amid unprecedented volatility.

A world once proud of globalization is now resentful of it. The ordinary person wants change, and the future is drifting away from the ideological “center” because of failed governance.

From this collective exhaustion will rise a quiet militancy that challenges the Philippine political order.

Gen Z may not yet fill the streets nor the public office, but they are more prepared than any generation before them to expose wrongdoing, reject false choices, and confront long-untouched institutions. A 2025 survey found that almost 70 percent of Filipinos are dissatisfied with the government if not of “little to no trust” in the Marcos administration’s future.

This is not a rejection of democracy itself, but of a democracy stripped of accountability and captured by dynasties and perpetuated through legal loopholes to exploit. A lost order that needs desperate reform.

The world they enter is far more complex than the world earlier generations faced.

China’s expanding economic and strategic influence intersects with the U.S. waning role as world police. Maritime tensions, the fragmentation of ASEAN unity, and rising great-power competition place the Philippines at a geopolitical crossroads.

Over the next five years, Philippine politics will be shaped less by ideology than by dynastic maneuvering, elite factionalism, and the organizational capacity of reformists. But ideology will increasingly become more tense.

Marcos Jr., weakened by the 2025 flood-control corruption scandal, has reshuffled his Cabinet and ordered sweeping audits. Signaling both his vulnerability and an attempt to reassert control amid rising public distrust. Dynasties will remain entrenched: at least 18 powerful clans secured multiple seats in the 2025 elections, while over half of party-list groups are tied to dynasties or corporate interests. Reformists have filed anti-dynasty bills and floated a constitutional convention, but without real structural change, these measures remain only symbolic, even as mass protests—including participation from Iglesia Ni Cristo—reveal corruption as a political fault line capable of reshaping alliances.

In this seemingly lost environment, Gen Z and youth-driven coalitions must move beyond digital activism, because it will never be enough to challenge the status quo.

By 2028, the Philippines will either see modest reform and a slight weakening of dynasties, or a reaffirmation of elite dominance, depending on whether reformists from either bloc can turn momentum into real political influence. 

The coming years will test whether reform can break entrenched patronage or remain aspirational. This collision will define the landscape that Gen Z must overcome.

But these forces are only the beginning. The important phenomenon is the political awakening of an imperfect and stubborn younger generation. 

Gen Z must learn to say no to structures that have failed them and insist on alternatives that reflect their hopes for a decent social and economic life.

Their strength lies not only in their numbers but in their willingness to imagine a different nation—one freed from political dynasties, bureaucratic rot, neocolonialism, and the myth that nothing can change.

The next generation understands that national progress depends on both internal reform and external strategy. But “reform” in ordinary understanding will not suffice. To believe in reform means that we still believe in the same rules of those who perpetuate the corruption we scream so much about. We must look for real alternatives, and finally ask ourselves: is the current system worth keeping, or do we need something finally new?

We must demand development that uplifts the ordinary Filipino, diplomacy that protects peace, and governance rooted not in personality or patronage but in competence, transparency, and justice. But these ideals are all but buzzword noise until backed by political will and action.

Generation Z stands at a historic threshold. They can inherit a nation defined by exhaustion, or they can build one defined by courage and political possibility.

The path ahead will not be easy.

But if this generation refuses resignation—if it demands a break from the past—then the Philippines may finally become a country worthy of those who will inherit it.

No more status quo. No more of the same failed institutions. For this generation and the next.

   

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