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Two surveys released by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) one week apart this new year really piqued my interest. No, they are not surveys about the senatorial candidates for the 2025 national elections (although I would find that interesting as well). The two surveys are about self-rated poverty, which was released on Jan. 8, 2025 and hunger, released on Jan. 14. Both studies were conducted between Dec. 12 to 18 among 2,160 respondents nationwide with a sampling error margin of two percent according to the SWS website (www.sws.org.ph) which, by the way has a massive amount of data and information about the country over a long period of time.

The first New Year’s resolutions were made some 4,000 years ago. Since the ancient Babylonians started pledging their allegiance to the reigning king or crowned a new king, and made promises to repay debts in the year ahead in order for the gods to bless them in the new year, people have been making — and breaking — promises every start of the year. Imagine all those promises broken! In fact, it has become a joke that we only make resolutions in order to break them.

People who have suggested that I should retire and just sit back and enjoy the “fruits of my labor” do not really know me. I have been working all my life. Since the first time I walked with my mother from our Tondo house to Divisoria until today, I have always been an entrepreneur. Today, I still start my day with a brisk walk early in the morning. But it is true what I said in past interviews: “I will probably die as an entrepreneur.”