Category: Philippine Star

At the public hearing for the proposed 2027 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) last week, Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. expressly supported the suggested declaration of ‘state of national emergency’ due to the El Niño weather phenomenon. It was brought out last week by Sen. Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan during the Senate finance committee hearing on the proposed 2027 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), in particular of the DA.

Local and international weather experts have repeatedly raised the alarm bells for the ‘Super El Niño’ period projected to linger longer than expected. Our own weather experts from PAGASA warned that a ‘strong to very strong’ El Niño is currently active in the Tropical Pacific and is expected to persist through the first half of 2027, currently peaking around the last quarter of this year.

Pangilinan, who chairs the Senate agriculture committee, floated his proposal amid the reported losses of vital agricultural crops like our staple rice and corn largely due to the early onset this year of the long dry spell. A formal state of calamity declaration allows national agencies and local government units to tap quick-response funds, impose price freezes on basic necessities and fast-track emergency procurement.

‘I do agree that it is good for us to declare because, from all indications, it is a Super El Niño,’ Tiu Laurel told the senators, adding: ‘Everybody in the world is saying it, so we better act fast.’

At the Senate hearing, the DA and attached bureaus and agencies presented a P198.3-billion budget for next year. From DA projections, a grim scenario that a strong El Niño could affect up to 4.6 million of the country’s 10.4 million farmers and fisherfolk, while threatening a decline of around one million metric tons in palay production. The DA budget included P20 billion explicitly dedicated to livestock development and competitiveness to mitigate risks of the incoming Super El Niño to these agriculture sub-sectors.

The DA secretary admitted he had not previously considered the proposed ‘state of emergency’ for the Super El Niño. He reassured though the senators that the DA is committed to implement the proposed 2027 budget of the agency aligned with measures to bolster defense mechanisms for food production and cushion drought-related losses.

A day before the Senate budget hearing, Tiu Laurel was among our special guests, along with top executives from the Maynilad Water Services Inc. led by its chief operating officer Chris Lichauco, at our weekly Tuesday Club breakfast gathering. Tiu Laurel got a sort of a preview of the kind of questions that he would likely be asked at the Senate budget hearing. He brought along DA official DA spokesman Arnel de Mesa and they were joined by other key Maynilad engineers, namely Ronald Padua, Ryan Jamora and Rudy Baylas at the Tuesday Club that we hold at the Edsa Shangrila in Ortigas Center, Pasig City.

At the outset, the DA secretary reiterated supply of potable drinking water is the first and foremost in the order of priorities, with irrigation needs of agricultural lands coming in second in the distribution and use of water sources like Angat Dam. According to Tiu Laurel, this is in line with the declared policy of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. (PBBM), with or without Super El Niño threats. Between water and food security, Tiu Laurel pointed out drinking water needs of the people take precedence over other priorities.

In response, Lichauco reassured the DA secretary Maynilad continues to monitor Angat levels, rainfall, raw-water quality, customer demand and production conditions as El Niño develops. While current conditions remain manageable, the company is maintaining its preparedness measures, given the possibility of drier conditions in the coming months.

In July 2026, Lichauco recalled the water level at Angat Dam fell to around 150.42 meters, below the 157.96-meter level recorded during the 2019 El Niño. Despite the lower reservoir level, he cited, Maynilad was able to maintain service without resorting to the rotational water interruptions experienced in 2019.

Thank God we had several months of typhoons and habagat rains that filled dams in Luzon.

But the major reason for this, Lichauco explained, is that Maynilad now has more water sources outside the Angat-La Mesa system. He mentioned these include Maynilad’s Laguna Lake treatment facilities, new water, modular treatment plants and deep wells. According to him, Maynilad has around 493 million liters a day (MLD) of treatment capacity outside the Angat-La Mesa system, reducing its dependence on Angat compared with previous years.

Lichauco pointed to Maynilad’s capital-intensive investments aimed at diversifying its raw-water sources more than a decade ago. It started, he noted, with the commissioning of Maynilad Putatan Water Treatment Plant using Laguna Lake as a raw-water source. The company has since expanded its Laguna Lake treatment capacity and developed other supplemental sources to provide additional supply buffers, he added.

The next day at the Senate budget hearing, the DA officials reported the strong, or Super El Niño, is already damaging crops and livelihoods across at least five regions – including Cagayan Valley and Bicol Region. Huge crop losses due to El Niño were also reported in CALABARZON (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal, Quezon), and SOCCSKSARGEN (South Cotabato, Cotabato-once called North Cotabato-Kudarat (as in Sultan Kudarat), Sarangani, Argen (as in General Santos City), all in south-central Mindanao.

Obviously, there is no immediate threat of the Super El Niño in Luzon provinces. So is there really a need to declare another nationwide state of emergency?

Are we not still under a state of emergency due to the Middle East crisis? PBBM already declared it under Executive Order (EO) No.110 issued just last March 24. The entire country remains under a ‘State of National Energy Emergency and Authorizing the Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food and Transport,’ or UPLIFT for short.

Throwing money as ayuda or the cash subsidies from the government is always the easiest way out of potential crises. That in essence was largely addressed by the Supreme Court ruling last week on the ayudas in the three Congress-approved budget laws.

After falling short of the floor exercise crown, Carlos Yulo relinquished his position as world vault champion as well.

The Filipino superstar vaulted to an average of 13.883 to finish seventh overall in the eight-man final of the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands last night.

Yulo’s title-retention bid was pulled down by an erratic landing on his first vault, which led to a 0.30-point penalty on his 5.600 difficulty and 8.033 execution scores.

He improved to a 14.433 on his second vault (5.200 difficulty and 9.233 execution) but it wasn’t enough to overtake winner Artur Davtyan of Armenia (14.850), silver medalist Jake Jarman of Britain (14.650) and bronze medalist Sebastian Sponevik of Norway (14.366).

Yulo, the reigning Olympic and Asian Games floor and vault kingpin, left the 2026 edition of the world meet empty handed. The other night, he placed eighth and last in FX with a low 13.233 mark.

More than a year after the flood control scandal prompted promises of a cleaner budget, watchdogs told the Senate on Monday, October 26, that over P1 trillion of the 2027 spending plan remains open to political patronage.

More than two-thirds of that amount, P695 billion, is in infrastructure, the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) said at a hearing today by the Senate finance panel.

This amount includes about 6,200 public works projects worth P172 billion that the House reportedly inserted without publishing supporting documents, the group said based on their partial “risk analysis” of the budget.

‘Ang worry po namin, hindi pa rin po natututo o nahihiya ang Kamara sa kabila ng lahat ng pagma-march at rally namin. Sa kabila ng sigaw ng taong bayan, hindi pa rin natauhan,’ said Ken Abante, a co-convenor of the group.

(Our worry is that the House still has not learned, or felt any shame, despite all our marches and rallies. Despite the people’s outcry, it still has not come to its senses.)

By default, projects without supporting documents should be struck down by the Senate or vetoed by the president, the group said.

“Sa budget na pinaghirapang buwis ng taong bayan bawal magka-typo (A budget built from taxpayers’ money should not have typographical mistakes),” Abante said.

It’s the second year in a row that the Senate finance committee set aside a hearing for civil society groups on the national budget, a practice Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian began in October 2025 when he chaired the panel.

Groups at Monday’s hearing told senators the 2027 budget still favors pork-type allocations over basic services.

The House version of the General Appropriations Bill, according to the groups, includes deep cuts to health, education and agriculture, while prioritizing aid programs that require referral letters from lawmakers.

The Senate aims to open floor debate on its version of the 2026 budget in the week of November 9.

Projects plotted at sea?

There are P1 trillion in “red flags” in the proposed 2027 budget, the People’s Budget Coalition said based on their analysis.

The coalition put the largest share of its estimate, P695 billion, under “hard pork,” or politically driven infrastructure.

Another P210 billion is “soft pork,” mostly aid that flows through lawmakers’ referrals, and P112 billion is “shadow pork,” the standby funds known as unprogrammed appropriations.

Together, these make up about one in every seven pesos of the P7.2-trillion budget.

Among the projects flagged by the coalition are the more than 350 farm-to-market roads worth nearly P6 billion that the House had inserted in the Department of Agriculture’s budget.

Coordinates listed for some of those roads fall in the Celebes Sea and in the Philippine Rise, formerly Benham Rise, an undersea region off Luzon’s eastern coast, Abante said.

Some buildings appeared to plot to Algeria and Nigeria, he added.

In the Department of Health, the House added more than 180 health facilities worth over P2 billion while cutting the overall budget for health facilities.

The National Irrigation Administration received more than 200 new irrigation projects worth over P7 billion, some based on questionable cost estimates, Abante added.

Across all agencies, the coalition counted nearly 7,000 House-added projects worth P190 billion with no published project attachments. Many of the public works projects are multipurpose buildings, Abante said.

“Hindi po namin sinasabi na katiwalian ang lahat ng ito. Kailangan po natin ng imprastrukturang ito pero sana maayos,” he said. (We are not saying all of this is corruption. We need this infrastructure, but it should be done right.)

Abante said the House was repeating the “modus operandi” of insertions under former Speaker Martin Romualdez and former House appropriations panel chair Elizaldy Co.

Romualdez was arrested on September 7 on a P7.4-billion plunder charge before the Sandiganbayan over flood control projects, a case in which Co is also accused. Romualdez has denied any wrongdoing.

The House made its amendments through its Budget Amendments and Review Subcommittee, which replaced the appropriations panel’s small committee long criticized for creating pork insertions behind closed doors.

Insertions by district

Based on the General Appropriations Billl approved by the House, Ilocos Norte’s 1st District received the largest House insertions at P4.375 billion, more than twice the next-highest, Misamis Occidental’s 2nd District, at P1.8 billion.

Davao de Oro’s 2nd District and Isabela’s 4th District followed at P1.7 billion each, then South Cotabato’s 2nd District at P1.6 billion.

Abante said the amounts were allocated through DPWH district engineering offices and he did not attribute these to the lawmakers representing the districts.

Ilocos Norte’s 1st District is represented by Rep. Sandro Marcos, the president’s eldest son.

Aid by referral

The House nearly doubled funding for five aid programs, to P137 billion from the P72 billion that the executive proposed, said AJ Montesa, another co-convenor of the group.

The programs include Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS), which gives emergency cash aid, and Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP), which helps pay hospital bills.

Aid under these programs often requires a guarantee or referral letter from a lawmaker’s office, which in effect reserves the funds for individual legislators, Montesa said.

He said the coalition’s national coordinator, who was due to speak, could not attend because her mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

When she brought her mother home from the emergency room on October 11, the bill for chemotherapy complications came to P77,000, of which PhilHealth covered P11,000. She wrote to politicians’ offices for a guarantee letter but received none, Montesa said.

The coalition said the House cut funds for health promotion, immunization and health facilities to enlarge MAIFIP.

“So it seems that the House wants us to get more sick so that we can beg more for our hospital bills,” Montesa said.

If the country were to operate on the budget approved by the House “as is,” there could be another corruption scandal similar to the irregularities exposed in the Department of Public Works and Highways’ flood control works, Abante said.

‘Night and day po talaga ‘yung pakiramdam naming budget advocates between the House and the Senate,’ Abante said, thanking senators for listening to the groups’ calls for reform. (For us budget advocates, the House and the Senate really feel like night and day.)

In September, the coalition complained that civil society representatives were given only three minutes to speak at the House’s People’s Budget Review.

Now that the Supreme Court has declared controversial allocations in 2024, 2025 and portions of the 2026 national budgets unconstitutional, what happens next?

The money has been spent (or stolen?) and we are not getting it back. Indeed, even the Supreme Court applied the doctrine of operative fact which means the money already spent does not need to be returned in the presumption that those concerned acted in good faith.

Good faith? My foot! Those officials knew what they were doing and it wasn’t for the public good. They have always had larceny in their hearts, salivating and with tears of joy while they made billions of pesos in potential kickbacks codified into law.

At best, the Solicitor General advised the President and the budget department to stop spending parts of the 2026 national budget that had been declared unconstitutional.

The good news is… the budget department confirmed that virtually no money has been illegally spent from the nullified 2026 provisions yet since they have limited the 2026 unprogrammed fund releases to legal foreign-assisted projects.

We are told that authors, proponents and implementers of the unconstitutional budget provisions can still face individual civil, criminal or administrative liability if they are found to have acted in bad faith. That will take some doing, given our judicial system.

What are we left with? According to explanations from the Office of the Solicitor General and the Supreme Court Spokesperson, the high court’s ruling serves primarily as a constitutional guardrail for future budget-making rather than an order to claw back past disbursements.

That means, the ruling permanently bars Congress from inflating unprogrammed standby funds beyond the President’s total recommended ceiling. But knowing how crafty the evil minds of our legislators are, they will find a way around the ruling like they did on the PDAF ruling during the PNoy era.

The test of congressional sincerity and respect for the high court ruling will come in the next few weeks as the Senate works on the 2027 budget bill passed by the House. Let’s see what they will do with the unprogrammed items and lump-sum provisions the House inserted in the proposed 2027 national budget.

The Supreme Court ruling validated the objections of budget watchdogs to the insertions introduced by the House in the P7.2-trillion 2027 national budget.

Civil society watchdogs recently raised major red flags over the House-approved 2027 budget, exposing P179 billion in last-minute pork-like insertions into public works.

The watchdogs also noted that the House slashed P93 billion from carefully planned foreign-assisted infrastructure projects and inserted P190 billion into unitemized local allocations without any public attachments or detailed unit price analyses.

Budget watchdogs explain that by hiding the true purpose of these lump sums behind missing or intentionally corrupted data, House leaders designed these line items to serve as a ‘shadow pork barrel’ due to their broad, unitemized and discretionary nature.

The Supreme Court ruling directly declared lack of transparency is unconstitutional. The court permanently prohibited overly broad, unitemized provisions because they lacked prioritization standards and essentially functioned as illicit lump-sum appropriations.

The Court also ruled that bloating unprogrammed allocations beyond the executive’s request – such as Congress adding P449.5 billion to the 2024 budget -constitutes a grave abuse of discretion.

Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian announced that the Senate will actively remove the unconstitutional spending provisions struck down by the court and drastically tighten safeguards on the remaining P111.2 billion in proposed unprogrammed appropriations.

Sen. Ping Lacson noted the ruling’s ‘perfect timing,’ providing the Senate with the constitutional leverage to undo P206 billion in realignments introduced in the House version. The Sen. plans to meticulously scrutinize and potentially reverse House cuts to foreign-assisted projects and its opaque diversions into massive flood control and farm-to-market roads.

The Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. JV Ejercito, is working with the DBM to ensure the total combined budget (programmed and unprogrammed) strictly adheres to the ceiling recommended by the President in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

In the public mind, a serious crime has been committed but apparently, it can be legally argued otherwise. Who is culpable? Who should take responsibility and suffer consequences?

The executive and legislative leaders clearly share accountability. They knew their limits but they still chose to breach the constitutional ceiling.

The President’s own NEP set the limit, yet the Executive (BBM and his former budget secretary) accepted a General Appropriations Act that artificially inflated unprogrammed funds (by P449.5 billion in 2024).

BBM declined to exercise his line-item veto power over appropriations. By signing the budgets into law without vetoing the unprogrammed fund inflation or the broad lump-sum provisions, BBM allowed a constitutional violation. The former Budget Secretary released and administered these funds, which constitutes participation in the unconstitutional act.

Who determines culpability now? The Supreme Court’s ruling is about the constitutionality of the law, not individual criminal guilt. The Ombudsman must investigate who is guilty of grave misconduct or violation of the Constitution.

If the Ombudsman finds probable cause that the President (after his term, due to presidential immunity), the former Budget Secretary, or congressional leaders acted in bad faith, charges must be filed and proven in the Sandiganbayan.

If congressional leaders claimed benefits from, or directed money to ghost, bloated or substandard projects, they lose their legal shield of so-called good faith.

Oh well! What the public sees as a complete betrayal of public trust will likely go unpunished. Even now, they are going back to the Supreme Court feeling aggrieved that their privileges as independent branches of government have been supposedly curtailed by the decision.

On the contrary, that landmark Supreme Court decision shows how the constitutional checks and balances feature works. That’s our consuelo de bobo. But it is an empty victory unless some people are jailed.

The weekend arrest of journalist Philip Lustre Jr. followed methods long used to harass former President Rodrigo Duterte’s critics, his lawyer said, pointing to a complaint filed far from where the accused lives and timing the arrest to block immediate bail.

Lawyer Dino de Leon, counsel for the 72-year-old, noted the “highly irregular” steps in the cyber libel case initiated against Lustre in Davao City, the political stronghold of the Duterte family.

Among others, De Leon flagged how Lustre did not learn of the charges against him until police arrived with a warrant for him in the middle of a forum on Saturday, October 24. De Leon, who was attending the forum as guest speaker, stepped in to represent him.

Denial of due process

De Leon said the prosecutor’s subpoena for the preliminary investigation was sent to a wrong address, depriving Lustre of his right to submit a counter-affidavit before the court ordered his arrest.

“Hindi siya mahanap, hindi siya matunton. Pero pagka-posas na, ang daling matunton,” De Leon said in an interview with DZMM on Monday, October 26.

(They could not find him or track him down [for the subpoena]. But when it came time to handcuff him, he was easy to locate.)

De Leon criticized prosecutors for bypassing preliminary notice and argued that presenting an arrest warrant as a first notice violates basic constitutional protections.

“Hindi naman puwedeng posas ang una mong makikita,” De Leon said. “May preliminary investigation, eh mali ‘yung address… So pagdating sa subpoena para ma-make sure na may due process, na-depensa niya sarili niya, makapag-file ng counter-affidavit – wala.”

(You cannot just present handcuffs first. There should be a preliminary investigation, but the address was wrong. So when it came to serving the subpoena to ensure due process and allow him to defend himself-nothing.)

He called on the Department of Justice to investigate whether Davao City prosecutors are routinely skirting the regular process to swiftly act on complaints by the Duterte family.

“Nananawagan kami sa Department of Justice na imbestigahan kung kalakaran ba ito sa Davao City Prosecutor’s Office,” he said. “Basta mga Duterte o mga Davao group ang nagrereklamo, wala nang due process?”

(We are calling on the Department of Justice to investigate whether this is standard practice in the Davao City Prosecutor’s Office. Whenever the Dutertes or the Davao group file a complaint, is due process discarded?)

Ombudsman Boying Remulla told reporters Monday that it is a familiar “modus” for complainants to deliberately give the prosecutor the wrong address, leaving the prosecutor with no choice but to “rely on the complainant for much of the information.”

“It should not happen. […] They have a duty to conduct due diligence,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.

“Definitely [Lustre] did not receive the papers. It was submitted for resolution, and then a warrant of arrest was issued without the person knowing. That’s wrong. The Department of Justice needs to investigate what happened so it does not happen again,” he said.

Calculated weekend arrest

Judge Retrina Fuentes of the Davao City Regional Trial Court Branch 10 signed the warrant on October 2. It charges Lustre with online libel under Section 4(c)(4) of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

Police served the warrant on a Saturday morning when court offices were closed and processing bail would’ve been more difficult.

Lustre, a senior citizen who has difficulty walking, was held for hours and was unable to eat lunch while his legal team scrambled to secure his release, De Leon said.

Defense lawyers eventually located an emergency duty night judge late Saturday evening to process his P48,000 bail, allowing Lustre to avoid staying in detention through the weekend.

In a social media post after his release, Lustre called the arrest ‘a special operation’ against him.

‘The intention was to have me arrested on a Saturday and stay in jail on a weekend because I might not be able to post bail for my release,’ Lustre wrote.

Police officers unable to explain warrant

De Leon also flagged the lack of knowledge by the arresting officers themselves who could not explain who had filed the complaint against Lustre.

While the warrant specified the offense as cyber libel, it omitted the private complainant’s identity and specific facts.

De Leon explained that under the court system, warrants uploaded to the electronic e-warrant portal often lack attached case information. This leaves police officers unable to explain the basis of an arrest, as was the case on Saturday.

‘Dapat sana in-upload ‘yung information para pag tinanong naman ‘yung pulis, ‘Bakit n’yo po ako inaaresto?’ eh may maisagot naman ‘yung pulis,’ he said.

(The information should have been uploaded so that when the police are asked, ‘Why are you arresting me?’, they would have an answer.)

“‘Di ba nagmumukhang katawa-tawa yung ating buong sistema, na ‘gagawin lang po namin trabaho namin wala kaming kaalam-alam’?” he added.

(Doesn’t our entire system look ridiculous – with the stance, ‘We’re just doing our jobs; we have no idea about anything’?)

Filing venue

The complaint was filed in Davao City, nearly 1,000 kilometers from Manila, where Lustre is based.

Under the Revised Penal Code, a private individual may file a libel case where the material was first printed and published, or where he or she lived when it was published.

Lustre is the author of ‘Kill, Kill, Kill,’ a book on killings during Duterte’s drug war.

Duterte is on trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over the drug war he carried out as president, and earlier, as Davao mayor.

Under Duterte

Duterte often attacked news organizations that reported critically on his drug war.

In December 2019, Duterte vowed to see to it that broadcaster ABS-CBN went off the air, a promise that his allies in the House delivered by 2020, when they rejected the network’s franchise renewal.

News site Rappler and its chief executive, Maria Ressa, also faced a string of criminal cases under Duterte. Ressa was arrested at her office one evening in February 2019, too late to post bail, and spent the night in custody.

She was convicted of cyber libel in 2020 and has appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

Media groups have long pushed for the decriminalization of libel in the country, where several such cases have been used to intimidate the press.

A United Nations special rapporteur has also backed calls to repeal the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, a highly contested law that rights groups say has been weaponized to go after critics of government.

Aurora Gaming PH finally added a domestic championship to its growing list of accomplishments, defeating Team Falcons PH, 4-2, to capture the MPL Philippines Season 18 crown on Sunday before a sellout crowd at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.

For a team that entered the season under heavy scrutiny after a slow start that saw it languish in the bottom half of the standings, the triumph completed a remarkable turnaround. More importantly, it gave the reigning world champion the one trophy that had eluded the organization since its arrival in MPL Philippines.

Jan “Domeng” Delmundo was named Finals MVP after spearheading Aurora’s charge in the final three games of the series, helping the Northern Lights recover from a 2-1 deficit to claim the championship.

Aurora struck first in the series behind strong objective control from Kyle “Koyl” Reyes, but Falcons answered with victories in Games 2 and 3 behind the stellar play of Michael “Kyle” Sayson, Salic “Hadji” Imam and Marco “Super Marco” Requitiano to move within two wins of the title.

The turning point came in Game 4 when Aurora unveiled a surprise Estes midlane pick for Kenneth “Yue” Tadeo. The unconventional strategy caught Falcons off guard and allowed the Northern Lights to dominate every major engagement en route to an 11-2 rout that tied the series.

“Ako, as a player, yun yung pinaka difficult part. Yung nagulat kami sa mga pick nila. Tapos nalaro nila ng maayos, dun nila na take advantage yung laro,” Falcons roamer Rowgien “Owgwen” Unigo admitted after the loss.

Aurora doubled down on the strategy in Game 5, this time putting Dylan “Light” Catipon on Estes. In a wild back-and-forth contest, Delmundo shone on Chou while Reyes delivered crucial damage in the late game as Aurora secured a 21-17 victory and moved to match point.

Falcons coach Mohammad “Moody” Samal admitted Aurora’s draft forced his team into a reactive approach.

“Pag ganitong match, normally you would want to ban a hero na madalas ginagamit and we fell into that trap mas nagging reactive kami [sa draft] imbis na kami yung nagging aggressive today,” he said.

With Falcons forced to ban Estes in Game 6, Aurora simply found another answer.

Nathanael “Nathzz” Estrologo repeatedly started favorable engagements while Delmundo took over on Clint, racking up kills en route to a dominant performance. The Northern Lights overwhelmed Falcons from start to finish and sealed the championship with a convincing 15-2 victory.

For Aurora head coach Aniel “Master the Basics” Jiandani, the championship served as validation of the process the team adhered to despite its rocky start.

“Ito talaga yung statement na magtiwala lang talaga kayo sa proseso at systema naming, magagawa naming. ‘Di ko talaga siya inisip na aabot kami sa ganito. Gusto ko lang talaga kasi babaan yung expectation ko para hindi ganun kasakit kung anu man mangyari. Pero I think nahigitan kasi talaga ng mga boys kung anu man yung level ng practices namin, yung level na inaabot namin,” he said.

The title marks Aurora’s first MPL Philippines championship after previous runner-up finishes and further strengthens the team’s case as the country’s standard-bearer heading into the M8 World Championship in Istanbul, Turkiye.

“Sobrang saya kasi after heartbreaking seasons, kung baga, nakuha ko na ngayon. ‘Di ko talaga ini-expect kasi nga, galing kaming bottom eight at the start of the season. Walang nageexpect, dami nag doubt. Kami talaga nag trust process lang with our coaches. Actually hindi talaga naming ineexpect ito, ang target lang naming maka M8 and kung baga bonus ito,” said Delmundo.

Tadeo also celebrated his long-awaited first MPL title.

“Sobrang saya sa feeling, kasi after four or five grand finals appearances ko, ngayon ko lang nakamit yung first MPL PH champion ko. So, sobrang saya, especially sa, sa team ko din, hindi lang sa akin, kung baga first trophy rin ng org,” he said.

With both Aurora and Falcons already qualified for M8, attention now shifts to January’s world championship in Istanbul, where the former will attempt to become the first team in MLBB history to successfully defend an M-Series crown. The latter, meanwhile, hopes to win its first title as an organization.

Both teams will also carry the Philippines’ hopes of extending the country’s remarkable reign atop MLBB’s biggest stage and defend the “PH era”, with Filipino squads having won every M-Series championship since M2.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is looking to place about P80 billion worth of farm-to-market roads (FMR) under public-private partnership (PPP) to hasten the construction of farm roads in rural areas.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said the DA is looking to tap the World Bank and the International Finance Corp. to develop a PPP system for farm roads throughout the country.

‘Once that happens, if there are companies that will be eligible for PPPs, then that will be good because it will be private-sector money that will fund these projects. The government will just pay them back over the years,’ he added.

Tiu Laurel said the move to tap the private sector would allow the government to expedite the implementation of FMRs all over the country.

‘Areas with high poverty rates are the ones that need roads. The residents there have plenty of produce, but they lack access and cannot get their goods out. If roads are opened up then poverty incidents will decrease,’ he added.

He noted that the projects for PPP would be on top of the P33 billion funded under the agency’s 2026 budget for FMRs.

The agency is looking to construct 2,300 kilometers of farm roads, split across 1,605 projects this year.

Tiu Laurel said that construction for FMRs is likely to begin by December this year for projects funded by the 2026 budget.

Bidding for FMR projects has been stalled as the DA assumed construction and implementation for FMR projects from the Department of Public Works and Highways.

For 2027, the DA was given a P16 billion budget for farm roads, with the DA chief stating earlier that this is not enough to fund its 55,000 kilometers target

Who says your ice cream has to be all cream and almost nothing else? Award-winning chef Jackie Ang Po, who is best known for creating pastries, desserts and other sweet treats, recently teamed up with Kitchen 143 and Potatoes USA to create a unique ice cream with U.S. Dehydrated Potatoes in it.

Perfectly smooth, creamy, and refreshingly chilled, this icy treat is simply called U.S. Potato Sorbetes. It is great to have especially on a hot day.

U.S. Potato Sorbetes

Ingredients:

50 grams U.S. Dehydrated Potato Flakes

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

50 grams cassava starch

1 1/2 cups evaporated milk

1 1/2 cups condensed milk

250 ml. all-purpose cream per 400 grams

100 grams cheese cubes

10 grams cocoa powder

2 tbsps. ube flavoring

Procedure:

1. Mix together coconut milk, dehydrated potato flakes and cassava starch.

2. Boil evaporated milk and add to coconut milk mixture. Cook until mixture thickens.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients.

4. Freeze for at least 4 hours.

5. Remove from freezer and use hand mixer to beat the mixture until it is double in volume. Divide into three pans (400 grams each).

6. After 4 hours, add the flavoring in each one and beat until double in volume.

7. Freeze until ready to serve.

Anti-narcotics agents seized a total of P7.04 million worth of shab in separate operations targeting three suspected peddlers, one of whom was from Tawi-Tawi in the Bangsamoro region and had reportedly eluded four attempts to entrap him in the island province.

Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency 9 first arrested the elusive male shabu suspect trafficker on Friday, October 23, during an entrapment operation in Barangay Tugbungan Zamboanga City. The suspect was from Bongao, the capital of Tawi-Tawi.

Bryan Babang, director of PDEA 9, said on Monday, October 6, that their agents, backed by policemen from different units of the Police Regional Office 9, immediately frisked and handcuffed the suspect after he sold shabu to them during a transaction in Barangay Tugbungan, a residential area in Zamboanga City.

Babang said the PDEA 9 agents seized from the suspect a kilo of shabu worth P6.8 million and a mobile phone containing contact numbers of his alleged accomplices in Zamboanga City and Tawi-Tawi, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The operation that led to the suspect’s arrest was based on tips from residents, local executives in Tawi-Tawi and police officials in the BARMM. They reportedly informed authorities that the suspect had relocated to Zamboanga City after eluding at least four entrapment attempts in the province over the past two years.

A PDEA-9 provincial team in Basilan, along with police officers, also arrested a male suspected drug dealer on Saturday during an entrapment operation in Barangay Mariki, Isabela City. The suspect allegedly sold P102,000 worth of shabu to the operatives.

Babang said officials of the Isabela City Police Station supported the operation.

Another team of PDEA-9 agents seized P102,000 worth of shabu from a male suspected drug peddler arrested during an entrapment operation on Sunday in Barangay Siloh, Siay, Zamboanga Sibugay.

Provincial officials in Maguindanao del Sur and Lanao del Sur told reporters that six alleged cohorts of the suspect arrested in Siay had been apprehended one after another in separate operations conducted by the PDEA-BARMM and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in the two provinces over the past 17 months.

Two Philippine Coast Guard bomb experts were injured after an explosive they were preparing for a training activity went off inside the PCG-Southwestern Mindanao barracks here on Saturday.

In a statement, the PCG assured the public that the incident was not related to any terrorist activity in the city.

‘It has been classified as an accidental detonation during the handling and preparation of explosive materials within the PCG premises,’ the PCG said.

The injured personnel, whose identities were withheld, were conscious when rushed to Ciudad Medical Hospital for treatment.

Initial investigation showed that the two bomb experts were preparing explosive lecture materials for an upcoming training when the accidental detonation occurred.

The PCG stressed that it remains committed to ensuring the safety and welfare of its personnel and advised the public to remain calm as the incident is being investigated.