by Raffy Gutierrez
There is a phrase we use so casually that we no longer hear its danger.Ganun talaga.
That’s just how it is.
Two words. Soft. Familiar. Almost comforting. And yet those two words have quietly defended more dysfunction in this country than any corrupt official ever could.
A website crashes? Ganun talaga.
Traffic eats three hours of your life? Ganun talaga.
Floodwater reaches your living room for the third year in a row? Ganun talaga.
Your loved one who is in a critical condition dies in the emergency room of a dilapidated and understaffed Government hospital? Ganun talaga.
Your small business is forced to shut down because you cannot afford the extremely unaffordable government fees? Ganun talaga.
You’re told to come back next week because the signatory is out? Ganun talaga.
The phrase feels harmless. It sounds practical. It carries the tone of maturity, of acceptance, of emotional control. But what it often hides is surrender. It signals the moment when questioning stops and adjustment begins.
And that is where broken systems win.
Acceptance is powerful when it helps you deal with things you cannot control. But “ganun talaga” is not used for earthquakes or typhoons. It is used for man-made dysfunction. It is used for incompetence. It is used for inefficiency. It is used for decisions that could have been designed better—but weren’t.
When we say ganun talaga about preventable problems, we normalize preventable suffering.
The phrase becomes a shield. Not for citizens—but for systems.
It lowers expectations quietly. It trains people to shrink their standards to match reality instead of expanding reality to meet standards. Over time, the abnormal becomes ordinary. The unacceptable becomes routine. The broken becomes culture.
And once culture absorbs dysfunction, reform becomes offensive.
Try demanding faster service, clearer rules, or proper execution and watch how quickly the labels appear: impatient, entitled, unrealistic. The real danger of “ganun talaga” is not that it explains reality. It protects it.
It removes urgency.
It removes accountability.
It removes the idea that things could actually be different.
It is the root cause of why nothing ever really changes.
All the bad things we’ve had since we can remember are still bad and actually getting worse.
The most painful part is that this phrase often comes from good people. People who are tired. People who have adapted. People who have learned that fighting every battle is exhausting. So they conserve energy. They survive. They cope.
But coping is not the same as fixing.
There is a difference between emotional resilience and cultural resignation. One strengthens you. The other shrinks you.
A mature nation does not eliminate patience—but it draws lines. It distinguishes between what cannot be changed and what simply has not been changed yet. It knows the difference between reality and laziness disguised as inevitability.
We cannot keep pretending that dysfunction is destiny.
The moment we stop saying ganun talaga and start asking bakit ganun?—why is it like this?—the power dynamic shifts. Questions create pressure. Pressure creates reform. Silence creates decay.
If we want systems that respect us, we must first respect our own standards.
Because the most dangerous prison is not built with walls. It is built with phrases we repeat until we believe them.
And ganun talaga has kept us locked in longer than we realize. And until we make every effort to change this very toxic and negative mindset, our nation will always be stuck in this shameful reality where any hope for real progress will just be something we can only imagine.
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Rafael “Raffy” Gutierrez is a Technology Trainer with over 25 years of experience in networking, systems design, and diverse computer technologies. He is also a popular social media blogger well-known for his real-talk, no-holds-barred outlook on religion, politics, philosophy.
