How Far Will the Baton Be When It Leaves Our Hands

Jose T. Almonte in his book Endless Journey described nation-building as a "relay without end." It is such a simple way of putting it, but the more I think about it, the more it feels accurate in a quiet way. Each generation inherits problems it did not create, and yet it is expected to solve them. There is always this sense that something important was left incomplete. 

And looking at the Philippines now, it is hard to say that we are starting fresh. 

Our generation did not create corruption. We did not start political dynasties. We were not responsible for building many of the institutions that continue to fail us.

We inherited poverty, inequality, problems in education, weak governance, and a political system that has been struggling with many of the same issues for decades. 

But somehow, these are now our problems too. 

That is what I find interesting about the idea of a relay.

When you receive the baton, you do not get to choose where the previous runner stopped. You simply start from there. 

The same is true for a country. 

Decades later, we are still asking versions of the same questions. 

Why are so many Filipinos still poor? Why does corruption survive from one administration to another? Why do the same families remain powerful? Why do so many people feel that leaving the country is their best chance at a better life? 

Sometimes it feels like every generation is told that it will finally be the generation that changes everything. 

Then time passes, and another generation receives the baton. 

That’s why I do not see nation-building as one big moment of change anymore. There probably will never be a single election, president, movement, or generation that suddenly fixes the Philippines. Some problems are simply too deeply rooted for that. 

But that does not mean our part of the relay does not matter. 

Maybe the goal is not to finish the journey. Maybe it is simply to make sure that we move the country forward while the baton is in our hands.

Because eventually, our time will also end. 

Another generation will come after us. They will inherit whatever country we leave behind, just as we inherited the country left to us. 

The relay really has no end. 

So perhaps the question for our generation is not whether we can finish the journey. It is whether we can pass the baton a little farther ahead than where we received it.