......a year when corruption has been dragged into the light like a decaying corpse that can no longer be buried.
It feels as if the earth itself has grown weary. From Indonesia to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka to Nepal, France to the Philippines.....the year 2025 has become a year of revelation, a year when corruption has been dragged into the light like a decaying corpse that can no longer be buried.
The stories echo across continents: leaders exposed, projects delayed, public funds siphoned, and ordinary citizens left to bear the weight of betrayal. A mother in Dhaka who waits for clean water while politicians drink from golden glasses. A farmer in Nepal whose land slides away with the monsoon because funds for hillside protection vanished. Families in Sri Lanka struggling with inflation made worse by leaders who lined their pockets before they left the people empty. In Paris, the protests are not only about pensions or prices, but about trust stolen. And in the Philippines, floodwaters rise faster than accountability.
The question hangs heavily in the air: Why now? Why does 2025 feel like a year of collective unmasking? Perhaps the answer lies in the tiny glowing screens in our hands. Social media....once dismissed as mere noise.....has become a mirror too sharp to ignore. It records, replays, and resurrects the truths politicians want buried. A shaky video of a convoy of luxury cars while citizens are hungry spreads faster than any press release. A screenshot of bank transactions circulates before it can be denied. A single post of outrage becomes a chorus, and that chorus becomes a march in the streets.
Yet, there is sadness in this awakening. Because corruption is not new.....it is ancient. What is new is our exhaustion. We scroll and scroll, seeing scandal after scandal, and the sadness deepens into something heavier: a realization that we are governed not by servants of the people, but by merchants of power. For every road unpaved, every hospital unfinished, every classroom overcrowded, there is a hand that has dipped into the public purse.
And still, hope flickers in the grief. The flood of information, though overwhelming, has given ordinary people a weapon: awareness. A young student in Manila now knows the same details as a journalist in Paris. A laborer in Colombo can see the same videos that an activist in Jakarta shares. Corruption, once hidden in smoky rooms, now trends worldwide in seconds. Social media has blurred borders, uniting outrage into something resembling global conscience.
But awakening is not enough. If 2025 is the year of exposure, will 2026 be the year of change....or the year of despair? That depends on us. Outrage without action is just noise. Awareness without reform is just mourning.
There is deep sadness in realizing how much has been stolen. But sadness can be fertile soil. From grief, determination can grow. Perhaps this is what the world is telling us: the time for sleepwalking through corruption is over.
The question is not whether social media exposed corruption. It did. The question is whether we, awakened and grieving, will demand more than just exposure. Will we demand justice (even by just a keyboard warriors)?
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