As December 2025 draws to a close, I find myself asking a quieter question than usual, a question I am almost afraid to voice out:
Will I continue writing in 2026?
Writing has never been absent from my life. Since entering the public service in 1993, I have written almost every day—technical memoranda and letters, proposals, policies and guidelines, procurement justifications, reform notes, executive briefs. I have edited more pages than I can count. I have coached staff for more than two decades—teaching them how to tighten arguments, align paragraphs with legal anchors, defend a recommendation, or shape a document so it moves a decision rather than provokes resistance.
Writing has been my bread and butter in public service.
I have written for Directors, Assistant Commissioners, Commissioners, and Chairpersons of my institution. I have drafted documents that traveled upward for approval and outward for implementation. Writing has built systems. It has shaped reforms. It has clarified direction—though I rarely stopped to think about it that way.
But if I am honest, my relationship with writing did not begin with confidence. It began with a wound.
In high school, I submitted a book report on Scarlet Letter.
When it was returned, I was asked, “Who wrote this?”I felt it was not asked as praise. It felt more like it was asked with suspicion.
I remember holding the graded book report a little too tightly. I do not even remember the grade. I remember the tone, my anguish, my quizzical look.
I remember standing in that uncomfortable space between pride and insult. Should I feel complimented because it sounded too good? Or diminished because it was assumed it could not be mine? I had won essay contests before, yet that question made those victories feel strangely provisional.
That moment quietly followed me. It influenced how I viewed my own voice. Writing, I learned early, could invite doubt. Excellence could provoke disbelief. And so, for years, I wrote carefully. I excelled—but quietly. I procrastinated when writing was not required by duty.
Technical writing felt safe. It had structure. Citations. Annexes. Accountability.
Personal writing felt exposed.
And now, in 2025, writing faces a different kind of tension.
We live in an age of AI.
Words can be generated in seconds. Paragraphs can be assembled without lived experience. Tone can be simulated. Reflection can be approximated. It has become harder to tell whether a piece was wrestled with—or merely prompted.
For someone who once felt questioned about authorship, this new landscape presents a deeper challenge.
If machines can write, what does it mean for me to write? If AI can structure ideas flawlessly, where does human voice matter?
The proliferation of AI makes writing both easier—and strangely more difficult. Easier, because tools now assist clarity, grammar, and organization. More difficult, because authenticity must now be defended in ways we never anticipated.
The temptation is strong to outsource expression to let the machine smooth the edges of thought or to accelerate what once required contemplation.
But leadership is not merely about producing text. It is about owning conviction.
So as I look toward 2026, I realize my writing must become more intentional, not less.
Why will I continue writing in 2026?
I will continue writing because:
- My children may one day want to understand not just what I did, but what I believed.
- My small team deserves reflections, not only directives.
- My co-Lingkod Bayan and co-leaders—inside and outside government—need language for tensions we sometimes navigate alone.
- My superiors deserve thoughtful framing, not just compliance.
- Researchers and younger public servants may seek lived insight beyond formal reports.
In a time when AI can generate sentences, human writing must carry something AI cannot: accountability, context, scars, doubt, restraint, and conviction.
AI can assist structure. It cannot carry responsibility. AI can replicate tone. It cannot replicate lived consequence.
Perhaps that high school question—“Who wrote this?”—prepared me in a way I did not understand then.
Authorship matters. Ownership matters even more.
In 2026, I will not write to compete with machines. I will write to remain human. Not to prove I can. But to ensure that my voice—shaped by decades of service, conflict, reform, coaching, and growth—remains deliberate and accountable.
In public service, we build systems. In writing, we build meaning. And meaning must still be human.
So as 2025 closes, I choose this:
In 2026, I will continue writing. Not because I have to. But because in an age of algorithms, choosing to write as a thinking, accountable leader feels, at least to me, like one of the quietest acts of integrity left.
— Director Noreen
Image: AI-generated illustration inspired by The Scarlet Letter.
