Solitaire on New Year’s Day

The New Year’s Eve extravaganza of screaming fireworks and whistling firecrackers bursting in the dark sky competed with the boisterous exuberance of family and friends welcoming the new year. The countdown to midnight was a loud chorus, after which 12 grapes were consumed by each — to ensure peace, happiness, and prosperity in the coming 12 months of 2026.

After the din, only the singer Barry Manilow’s mentholated baritone rose (called forth by Siri), to soothe hoarse throats from all the shouting and cheering, and calm the agitation of minds and hearts over what the new year might bring:

“It’s just another New Year’s Eve, it’s just another Auld Lang Syne/ But when we’re through, this New Year, you’ll see/ will be just fine.”

How can you be sure, you say to yourself, even as the festive table must not (yet) be immediately cleared and cleaned after the New Year’s Eve overload of food, good-luck goodies and symbols to sustain good luck and prosperity throughout the year? Barry Manilow appeases our anxieties:

“We’re not alone, we’ve got the world, you know; and it won’t let us down… just wait and see…”

But don’t you feel more “alone” after New Year’s Eve, as the mood pendulum swings from the rowdy early evening hours to after midnight when the merry making disperses into the darkness of the unknown future? It is still a few hours before the bright morning, but you can’t immediately sleep. Maybe a few relaxing rounds of Solitaire on your iPad will ease the over-stimulation of the evening.

Solitaire, by its very name, is a game played alone — you against yourself. It is a strategy game — where you analyze and prioritize your options towards achieving your goal of ordering your chances for life and survival. Isn’t it poetically, and practically, the meditative inventory-taking of one’s successes and failures at year-end, and the serious planning of what to do to maximize resources and abilities for the new year?

The game starts with a 28-card tableau of seven columns topped by an open card each, with each column starting with the second column having one face-down card behind the top card, the second, two; the third, three; etc. until six face-down cards are behind the open card of column No. 7 in the tableau. This tableau symbolizes uncertainty. The remaining 24 cards are face-down on the stockpile, from which you can draw to help you in your calculated moves towards organizing the seven-column tableau in descending ranking of King to Deuce, alternating colors black and red. The final goal is to complete the four-column “Foundations” where you are to arrange the four suits — Hearts, Diamonds, Spades and Clubs — in their individual ranking of Ace to King.

Oh, this convoluted exercise of card numbers and suits, ranking according to face cards King, Queen, and Jack, and the descending numbers cards, leading to Ace (Number One), the most valuable card! The Ace is the top card in Solitaire, because it starts the foundation stack for each suit — the end goal of the game.

Solitaire urges the mind to systematically plan and rank recognized options in life, aided, of course, by fate and luck, but based more on self-discipline and the choices made. There is a parallel to the “textbook” common steps in a planning cycle:

1. Analyze and Observe: Understand the current situation, identify problems or opportunities, and gather relevant information.

2. Set Goals and Objectives: Define what you want to achieve, making goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

3. Develop Options: Brainstorm and explore different strategies or paths to reach your goals, considering resources and potential risks.

4. Select Best Option: Choose the most viable strategy, often involving detailed planning for tasks, timelines, and responsibilities.

5. Implement the Plan: Put the detailed plan into action, allocating resources and executing tasks.

6. Monitor and Evaluate: Track progress, assess outcomes against goals, identify what works (and what doesn’t), and gather lessons learned.

7. Review and Adapt: Use evaluation insights to make necessary adjustments, leading back to the analysis stage for continuous improvement.

This iterative process ensures plans remain relevant and effective over time, adapting to changing circumstances. A SWOT analysis, business strategists say, is a strategic planning tool used to assess the company or project’s (or an individual’s) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (uk.indeed.com).

It is urgent and imperative in this new year that we Filipinos seriously examine our options and strategize our moves in fighting to restore peace, and exacting justice upon our corrupt and dishonest government officials who have stolen so much from the country. The 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index scored the Philippines at 33 out of 100 points. When ranked by score, the Philippines ranked 114^th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. The Philippines’s score was significantly worse than the regional average of 44 and the worldwide average score of 43 (Transparency.org., March 15, 2025.).

The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) and various watchdogs estimated in October, that the country loses at least P700 billion to P1.4 trillion annually to corruption across all levels of government — from procurement and ghost projects to bribery, smuggling, and political patronage. Over the last decade, that translated to trillions siphoned off, enough to build thousands of schools, hospitals, and flood control systems that the nation still lacks.

The flood control corruption scandal, which first came to light during President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s 2025 State of the Nation Address, centers on the alleged loss of P118 billion in government funds which went to a web of favored contractors, lawmakers, and other officials involved in the construction of government flood projects in the last three years, ABS CBN reported on Sept. 11. The controversy centers on billions of pesos allocated for flood management initiatives, reports of “ghost” projects, substandard construction, and the alleged cornering of contracts by a small group of favored contractors with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). In September 2025, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said that anomalous ghost flood control projects were estimated to have cost the Philippine economy as much as P118 billion ($2.4 billion) between 2023 and 2025.

Senators alleged that a small group of contractors had cornered contracts worth around P100 billion ($2.03 billion), raising concerns over competition and transparency. Marcos revealed that of 2,409 accredited contractors, 15 were awarded P100 billion, or 18% of the entire P545.6-billion ($11.08 billion) flood mitigation budget allocated by his administration from July 2022 to May 2025.

Investigations into the flood control projects were launched, first in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee which invited the participation of House Representatives and other government agencies and commissions, until the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) was officially created by President Marcos Jr. to officially prepare reports to be submitted to the Ombudsman.

A total of 48 officials have been implicated in the preliminary investigations on the corruption scam: six from the Executive Department; three Undersecretaries; nine Senators; 30 from the House of Representatives; one from a Constitutional Commission (Commission on Audit); and eight whistleblowers, contractors, and members of the DPWH.

The lack of regulation in campaign donations and a weak public procurement system have left public funds vulnerable to corruption. In 2022, at least 30 contractors who gave campaign donations to senators and representatives had or were given government projects. From 2022 to 2025, the number of public works contracts that went to those campaign donors rose significantly.

On Dec. 25, the Makabayan bloc, made up of progressive lawmakers at the House of Representatives, called out President Marcos Jr. for his supposed unfulfilled promise to arrest and jail high-ranking government officials involved in the flood control corruption scandal before Christmas Day.

Mr. Marcos had indeed told reporters at a Malacañang press conference on Nov. 13 that “Authorities are looking to file criminal and administrative cases against 37 individuals, including lawmakers, contractors, and other government officials implicated in flood control anomalies.

“Bago mag-Pasko marami dito sa napangalanan dito, palagay ko matatapos na ang kaso nila, buo na ’yung kaso nila” (Before Christmas, many of those named here, I think their cases will be over, their cases will be complete), he said. “Makukulong na sila, wala silang Merry Christmas” (They will be jailed, there will be no Merry Christmas for them), he said. But there were no arrests before Christmas.

It was an anxious Christmas for Filipinos. Veteran journalist Vergel Santos said in Rappler on Jan. 10: “2025 may well have been the year of our rudest awakening, the year we were roused to the ultimate challenge to our values as a people.”  He warned, “Being jolted awake is only the first requirement; the next is staying awake. And we all know only too well ourselves how easily and quickly we manage to go back to sleep and stay asleep through the worst of times.”

And so, we do not sleep after the passing euphoria of saying goodbye to 2025 and half-heartedly welcoming the unpromising 2026. We play serious Solitaire to discern our options and moves for peace and justice in our country, our hoarse protests soothed by the cool voice of Barry Manilow:

“Don’t look so sad, it’s not so bad you know./ It’s just another night, that’s all it is./ It’s not the first, it’s not the worst you know./ We’ve come through all the rest, we’ll get through this.”

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com