2025 is The Year of P#*@ngina

(SPOT.ph) The Filipino lexicon has always been colorful. It thrives on invention, bending Spanish, English, and native tongues into hybrids that are playful and piercing. From the age of the balagtasan to the era of FlipTop rap battles, language in the Philippines has never been neutral: it has always carried the pulse of the people.

And in 2025, no other word carried that pulse like putangina.

Yes, you read that right. Putangina—P-U-T-A-N-G-I-N-A—one of the most explosive swear words in the Filipino lexicon, perhaps the most vulgar, once banished to the fringes of polite conversation, had a big moment. A contraction between the Spanish puta and the Tagalog ina, literally “mother‑whore,” a construction steeped in sexism (like most curse words in patriarchal societies), the word had undergone a reclamation.

It’s hardly a newcomer to the public stage. Former president Rodrigo Duterte had a world-famous penchant for saying it, at one time aimed at former U.S. President Barack Obama and on another occasion at Pope Francis, who died this year.

One can only imagine what expletive the ex-president might have uttered when news broke in March of the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him, carrying with it the accusation of crimes against humanity tied to his war on drugs. His daughter Kitty supplied the word on his behalf, hurling the crisp, more personal variant “tangina ka” at then–Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Director Nicolas Torre (see video below). The moment echoed that of her older sister Sara, the country’s current vice president, when she wielded the same curse late last year in a now-infamous Zoom press conference tirade, with the President, his First Lady and House Speaker cousin on the receiving end.

But in the middle of 2025, putangina broke new ground, and proved that it's not just lewd lexicon. (We'd go so far as to say that, really, most curse words aren't.)

It started when Alex Eala opened her mouth—literally. In the U.S. Open in August, Eala became the first Filipino player to win a main draw match. But that moment became more punctuated because she was recorded mouthing what seems to be putangina after she scored a point.

The moment quickly became an internet sensation. While some old-fashioned souls raised their eyebrows, many more reveled in its relatability, with one group even calling it “a celebration of Filipino heritage”. PAGEONE even hailed putangina as “more than a curse, it’s the Filipino soul.”

Eala has not confirmed if she indeed mouthed the curse word, but the situation certainly merited a putangina. Sure, it could be brushed off as a sigh of relief, or an expression of happy disbelief, but it also carries the weight of a female athlete’s uphill climb—a challenge that persists in 2025. Months into her tenure in the spotlight, spectators (many of whom appear to be non-athletes) see fit to comment on her professional trajectory, her income, and Lord knows what else. (Also worthy of note: Barely a month after Eala’s triumph, UAAP Women’s Basketball referees were staring down a pay cut—a decision that exposed a hierarchy embedded not just in sports but in society, where women’s labor is consistently undervalued.)

Outside of sports, who could forget the 2025 elections, when women became the punchline of sexist jokes? Male candidates hurled misogynistic remarks during rallies and public appearances, such as lawyer Ian Sia appealing to solo mothers to sleep with him once a year, and Misamis Oriental governor Peter Unabia saying their nursing scholarship is only for “beautiful women.”

If that doesn’t merit a putangina, what will?

Well, putangina reappeared in September, when Vice Ganda hurled it at the Trillion-Peso March. Standing before thousands at the EDSA Shrine, the LGBTQIA+ icon bellowed “putangina n’yo!”—a curse aimed squarely at officials accused of siphoning off billions meant for the country's flood control projects.

Flood control is undoubtedly the national scandal of 2025, with what was supposed to be a lifeline against typhoons turned into a cash cow. Billions of pesos were funneled into ghost projects that enriched a few and caused suffering for many, leaving ordinary Filipinos wading through waist‑deep waters—or worse, losing their livelihoods and loved ones. With just one word but said with so much rage and power, Vice Ganda’s putangina encapsulated how fed up we are with the shameless corruption.

And this, too, merits a putangina: how we are fed up with wages that never rise, prices of services and basic goods that never fall, and campaign promises that never materialize. We are fed up, too—in case it still needed to be said—with being called resilient. Putangina that.

Putangina has become shorthand for everything we can no longer stomach. It carries our exhaustion with corruption, our growing resentment over the taxes we keep payingt—for the better life we have yet to see. But it is also our expression for relief: the exhale after a long struggle. Putangina punctuates passion, in victory as much as defeat. It is the language of triumph as much as defiance.

Putangina is elastic enough to hold contradiction—it is curse and celebration, protest and release. In a singular word, it encapsulates the duality of a nation that suffers and survives, that rages and rejoices. 2025 carried with it so much weight, and only a forbidden word could define it. Here's hoping that in 2026 our putanginas are more result of jubilation than frustrated fury.

Also read: Why There's Real Power Behind Vice Ganda's Speech in EDSA