My last update last year, it’s the time where Munger has passed. This year, its Buffett stepping down as CEO of Berkshire. Two back to back milestones that seems to describe a long play finally ending. A long year stint, a lot of learnings. I will miss Buffett’s letters, witty remarks and funny anecdotes. I wish we could have more years of him. But I guess we should just be grateful for the fact that, we as a generation, were lucky enough to have lived in his lifetime.

This year has also been the year of corruption scandal erupting in the Philippines. How many millions of pesos are being stolen by politicians and powerful people. People who have never made or produced anything. Stealing and living a lavish lifestyle on the back of those who work.

The unfairness of the situation in our country is, without a doubt, disheartening. It makes you ashamed of being lump together with these people and call yourself Filipino. It makes the honest and hard worker among us lose their interest to work. We all suffer just because a few and powerful decided they wanted to be above everyone else.

Is there a solution to this? I don’t think so. Even if the people who we knew, who stole money from the Philippines were charged and jailed. I doubt that the corruption will stop. It will just be new players all over again.

But just because the world is evil, does not mean you should be evil too.

Just because everyone is cheating, you should cheat as well.

As a philosopher once said, “you should not copy the bad simply because they are many.”

Living an honest life is a success in itself.

Living a life, though humble, but with peace of mind is success in itself.

There are people, of course, who think money and power means everything. But those come at an expense of envy, a troubled mind and soul.

Money only has power if you think money is everything. People in power, have power over you, only if you let them affect how you feel. Peace is the ultimate treasure.

Portfolios

Funds	Return	PSEI
My Portfolio	7.82	-7.29
Kid’s College Fund	8.10	-7.29
VIP Partnership	5.62	-7.29

My Portfolio

It returned 7.82% compared to PSEI of -7.29%. Though some parts of the portfolio were moved to real estate (I found a couple of good deals). I won’t be including those real estate holdings in here.

Kid’s College Fund

Apparently, this fund has never seen any movement in 2025. And it is the highest of them all at 8.10%. Goes to show that inactivity is better in investing.

VIP Partnership

Returned 5.62%. A modest gain.

Others

There are quite a few real estate dealings that I did this year. If I were to include them in my portfolio, it’s around 25% increase this year. All real estate holdings are assessed by banks. So it’s an accurate baseline.

But still, I won’t include those in this report. It will skew the portfolio returns.

Final Thoughts

Despite the modest return, 2025 has been a good year. Although there are worries that 2026 might be a lost year. We investors don’t care. As long as we can find value. Everything is all good.