Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

The low-pressure area (LPA) inside the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) has a ‘high chance’ of developing into a tropical depression on Sunday, state meteorologists said.

According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), the LPA was last spotted 1,340 kilometers (km) east of extreme northern Luzon, as of 3 a.m.

‘Based on our latest data, this low-pressure area is likely to become a tropical cyclone within the day and we will call it Pilandok,’ Pagasa weather specialist Obet Badrina said.

Badrina then warned that as the LPA moves westward toward the landmass, it is likely to strengthen the southwest monsoon.

Apart from the LPA, Pagasa is monitoring two other weather systems inside the PAR.

Among them is the southwest monsoon, which has been affecting most of Luzon over the past few weeks.

Tropical Depression Saudel is also being observed within the PAR, but has no direct effect on the country, Pagasa noted.

Saudel, formerly Obet, was last spotted 1,105 kilometers west-northwest of extreme northern Luzon, moving southwestward at 25 km per hour (kph).

Pagasa said Saudel has maximum sustained winds of 45 kph and gusts of up to 75 kph.

Four retired military generals who once steered the Army’s 10th Infantry Division (10ID) returned to their former headquarters on Friday, Aug. 28, in a rare homecoming tribute honoring the leaders who shaped the unit’s operational legacy.

Held at Camp General Manuel T. Yan Sr. in Barangay Tuboran, Mawab, Davao de Oro, the ‘Agila Tribute’ was organized by Maj. Gen. Alvin Luzon, 10ID commander, to recognize retired Gen. Noel Clement, retired Gen. Jose Faustino Jr., retired Lt. Gen. Ernesto Torres Jr., and retired Maj. Gen. Reuben Basiao.

Clement and Faustino both rose to become the 52nd and 56th chiefs of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, respectively. Torres later headed the Northern Luzon Command and served as executive director of the NTF-ELCAC National Secretariat.

During the gathering, the honorees reflected on their leadership journeys at the helm of the division and expressed gratitude to Luzon for the opportunity to reconnect with former colleagues and personnel.

‘Your names are part of our history. Your accomplishments are part of our institutional memory. Your lessons continue to influence the way we lead and serve,’ Luzon told the former commanders.

Luzon also challenged the current roster of troops to protect and advance the gains of their predecessors as the division transitions from sustaining an insurgency-free jurisdiction to posturing for external security operations.

‘To the current leaders and personnel of the Agila Division, this homecoming should remind us of our responsibility. We have inherited a legacy, something we must strengthen,’ Luzon said.

The event featured a ceremonial toast and the presentation of ‘The Eagle’ paintings to each honoree.

Also in attendance were retired Assistant Division Commanders Brig. Gen. Mario Lacurom and Brig. Gen. Maning Tawantawan, alongside other former senior officers of the 10ID.

The summer capital has been at the center of a budding metropolis for two years now, although this may not yet be common knowledge.

Working behind the scenes is the fledgling Metropolitan Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay Development Authority, more commonly known by the acronym BLISTT.

Much like the older Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the BLISTT metropolis has been quietly examining cross-border problems shared by Baguio and its five closest Benguet neighbors-the provincial capital and vegetable trading center La Trinidad; vegetable-producing towns Tuba, Tublay and Sablan; and Itogon, home to some of the Philippines’ oldest operating mines.

Lawyer Liberato Ramos Jr., one of the authority’s top managers, emphasized that BLISTT would not intervene in the policy directions of individual local governments. Instead, it would serve as a bridge toward joint solutions.

Ramos made the clarification when he introduced the BLISTT Metropolitan Authority for the first time to the Baguio City Council on Aug. 24.

Every local government would have complementary roles in the BLISTT metropolis, according to Marygail Antonette Killa, senior manager for planning and forester Marcial Aloda.

‘Baguio City is governance, healthcare, innovation, education, commerce, tourism,’ Aloda told the council.

He added: ‘La Trinidad is focused on agritechnology, education, trade and services. Itogon focuses on ecotourism, watershed, energy and mining.’

‘Tuba is a gateway and industrial hub. Sablan is focusing on agri-ecology, rural development, and community and Tublay would (center on) highland agriculture, organic farming, and agro-ecotourism,’ Aloda noted.

But while BLISTT intends to concentrate on the urbanizing towns surrounding Baguio, the city remains its ‘metropolitan core,’ Aloda acknowledged.

Problems once shouldered by Baguio alone-overpopulation, excessive waste, dwindling water supplies, traffic gridlock and overconstruction-are now emerging as crises for its Benguet neighbors. Some of these problems have already spilled over from the city.

These issues had been foreseen by the first incarnation of BLISTT as far back as 1990, after the Luzon earthquake once again devastated Baguio.

Conceived and popularized by the late city architect Joseph Alabanza, BLIST-then without Tublay-was envisioned as a blueprint for how Baguio could share or redirect investments and resources to adjoining municipalities to ease the pressure of extreme urbanization.

Affects everyone

Vincent Cabreza/Contributed photo

Tuba, for instance, could attract investments to develop its rolling hills into suburbs for families working in Baguio, Alabanza said in 1990, when he warned of what he saw as the city’s inevitable societal implosion if it continued along the same path.

More importantly, Alabanza argued that every stage of progress-and the benefits or problems it generates-ultimately affects the rest of BLISTT. Those problems are now here.

When a new comprehensive land use plan was presented to the City Council on Aug. 26, architect Donna Tabangin, Baguio’s planning, development and sustainability officer, said the city built 117 years ago under the American colonial government was closer than ever to the irreversible urban decay projected to occur by 2043.

To slow this grim trajectory, Baguio needs new analytical approaches to problems unique to a mountain city that was designed in 1905 by famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham as a hill station intended to accommodate no more than 25,000 people.

For instance, Tabangin said the city is now planning around what she calls an ‘effective population’-not just its residents, but also tourists, students and people from BLISTT and other parts of Luzon who come to Baguio for business.

In 2023, Baguio received 1.3 million tourists. It also had 6,469 nonresident high school students and 22,054 nonresident college students, while 351,833 people came into the city daily for business transactions, according to city data presented by Tabangin.

Baguio’s nighttime population in 2023 was 380,354, but its effective population doubled to 760,708 during the daytime, when consumption of resources is higher.

Baguio now has a clearer picture of how much it needs to conserve after a 2019 urban carrying-capacity study found that key resources and infrastructure, including public roads, forest cover, water and wastewater treatment, were no longer sufficient for its population.

The carrying capacity of Baguio’s roads, based on a standard of 15 square meters per person, was already 218 percent beyond capacity when measured against the resident population, Tabangin said.

‘But if you measure the road against an effective population, it really gets worse because we are now 437 percent beyond the capacity,’ she added, helping explain the city’s worsening traffic congestion.

‘We need a city that’s more compact in such a way that we cannot spread out and encroach more on our open spaces and green spaces because we need that for sustainability. We need to align development with the resource that’s available,’ Tabangin said.

Water constraints

Vincent Cabreza/Contributed photo

Water, Tabangin said, will be the ‘binding constraint’ for all of Baguio’s future programs, business incentives and public service initiatives.

‘We are in severe deficit based on computations and it’s rapidly worsening. So development cannot happen if the water supply cannot support the intensity of development there,’ she said.

Baguio’s current water deficit stands at 13,900 cubic meters per day, she said, with the city having exceeded its water carrying capacity by 158 percent.

The city’s other life-support systems are similarly under pressure.

Baguio’s forest cover is approaching a ‘near ecological threshold’ and is already 113 percent beyond its carrying capacity, while its green cover, or total vegetation, has a ‘large capacity deficit,’ at 104 percent beyond capacity.

The city’s new land use plan aims to make all 128 barangays more livable, Tabangin said, but doing so requires an audit of Baguio’s living conditions.

Preserving open spaces will be crucial. About 36 percent of Baguio’s 57.5-square-kilometer territory is covered by proclaimed civil and military reservations, equivalent to 2,083.4 hectares (ha), while 3,865 ha are designated as environmental protected areas.

Baguio’s notoriously high land prices are partly a result of these constraints.

Around 2,930 ha are titled properties, while about 658 ha are certified ancestral lands owned by Baguio Ibaloys, including their only ancestral domain.

Tabangin said the new land use plan also seeks to harness Baguio’s demographic dividend, with 70 percent of its working-age population being young and potentially capable of accelerating economic growth.

It has been the city’s youth, she noted, who have often stirred change-from volunteering to clean and repaint school walls to taking up activist causes in the city’s streets.

Police rescued a minor who was held hostage in Barangay Daddaay, Alilem, Ilocos Sur, on Saturday, Aug. 29.

The Ilocos Sur Police Provincial Office (ISPPO) said the suspect, a 37-year-old man reportedly with a mental disability, was inside a house with the child when police arrived after receiving a report about the incident.

Personnel of the Alilem Municipal Police Station immediately responded and began negotiating with the suspect in an effort to safely resolve the situation.

While negotiations were underway, a concerned resident called out the suspect’s name, prompting him to look toward a window.

Police seized the opportunity to move in and pull the child away from the suspect, successfully rescuing the minor.

The child, whose age was not disclosed, sustained wounds to both legs and was given first aid by a rural health unit nurse who was at the scene.

According to investigators, the victim was later brought to the Ilocos Sur District Hospital-Bio in Tagudin for further medical attention.

The suspect’s relationship to the victim was not immediately known.

Police said the operation was carried out with caution to protect both the child and the suspect and prevent further harm.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has delivered 24,029 family food packs (FFPs) to various warehouses and prepositioning areas in the Ilocos Region as it prepares for possible relief operations amid continuing rains.

Three trucks carrying 5,179 FFPs arrived on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the DSWD Field Office 1 satellite warehouse in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, while another truck delivered 1,700 FFPs to a prepositioning area in Vigan City, Ilocos Sur.

The deliveries were part of the agency’s continuing replenishment of relief supplies and efforts to ensure that food packs are readily available for families who may need assistance as rains persist.

Additional FFPs were also delivered to the DSWD regional warehouse in Biday, San Fernando City, La Union.

The DSWD said the additional stocks would strengthen its capacity to respond to communities that may be affected by prolonged rainfall, flooding and other weather-related incidents in the region.

The agency continues to coordinate with local government units and disaster response authorities to ensure the timely distribution of assistance to affected families

Due to the southwest monsoon, or ‘habagat,’ state meteorologists warned of heavy rainfall of up to 200 millimeters in 23 Luzon provinces on Sunday.

In its 5 a.m. outlook, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said an orange rainfall warning was in effect over Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan, La Union, Benguet, Bataan, Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga.

Under an orange rainfall warning, these areas are expected to experience 100 to 200 millimeters of rain in the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, a yellow rainfall warning was hoisted over Metro Manila, Ilocos Norte, Abra, Apayao, Kalinga, Ifugao, Mountain Province, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro.

These areas are anticipated to receive 50 to 100 millimeters of rain within the day.

According to Pagasa, three weather systems are being observed inside the Philippine area of responsibility.

These are Tropical Depression Sauder, formerly Obet, which is not directly affecting the country; a low-pressure area east of extreme northern Luzon; and the monsoon.

‘Right now, the southwest monsoon or habagat is still the main weather system affecting the country, particularly parts of Luzon. A large part of the western section of Luzon has been affected by the cloudiness brought by the southwest monsoon,’ Pagasa weather specialist Obet Badrina reported

The Human Organ Preservation Effort of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (HOPE-NKTI) is encouraging the public to become organ donors for the more than 500 individuals in the country currently in need of a transplant.

According to Dr. Anthony Russel Villanueva, head of HOPE-NKTI, the average number of deceased organ donors in the hospital is ‘not increasing,’ with only around 10 to 12 per year.

On the other hand, he said, there are now more than 500 patients in need of an organ transplant, based on the NKTI data from 2025.

Villanueva also reported that there were 64,000 new dialysis patients in the country in 2024.

The number of dialysis patients tend to increase by around 10 percent to 15 percent each year, with most of them qualifying for a kidney transplant, he added.

Culture factor

‘The demand is high but the number of our organ donors is low, so we really need the help of everyone for advocacy. So that it would be in our culture to donate,’ Villanueva told reporters on Friday.

‘In other countries, it’s a great honor for them to donate. When you become an organ donor, you are a hero to the community. Hopefully we can have that same mindset,’ he added.

To become an organ donor, the public can sign up by scanning the QR code that can be accessed through the HOPE-NKTI’s official Facebook page.

Villanueva explained that HOPE-NKTI deals with deceased organ donations, which involves patients who have already been declared as ‘brain dead.’ Aside from organs, he said, bones and tissues, including corneas, can also be donated to help not just those with illnesses but also persons with disabilities.

One challenge

But before any organ can be donated, consent must be secured first from the family of the potential donor, he stressed, adding:

‘By our experience, even if it’s in your license that you are an organ donor, we still need the consent of the legal next of kin.’

Villanueva acknowledged that obtaining such consent can be challenging. ‘Because we are (usually) an extended family, sometimes a sibling has already agreed but they want to wait for their sister’s or mother’s [agreement].’

‘When it takes time, that is a challenge because of the viability of the organ. From brain death, there will come a time where the heart stops, and by then [the organ] is no longer viable for donation,’ he explained.

To prevent this problem, Villanueva urged those who are planning to become organ donors to speak with their family regarding their decision.

‘They are really the ones who decide. Maybe you consented in your personal [capacity], but of course, the family’s [consent] is still needed,’ he said.

Floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains and enhanced by four weather disturbances so far this month have left more than 30 people dead, mostly in Luzon, authorities said.

Nine Aetas in Zambales and Pampanga and two workers at Subic Bay Freeport were among the latest fatalities confirmed on Saturday.

A lahar warning was also issued on Saturday for communities in Pampanga, where the devastation of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption remains indelible in local memory. This time, however, the threat of ‘noneruption lahar’ is not due to volcanic activity but to heavy rains letting deposits of pyroclastic material loose on local rivers.

A section of the decades-old Aquino Bridge in Tarlac province collapsed Friday night. Public works officials traced the cause of the structural damage to the strong currents of Tarlac River.

This month alone saw four tropical cyclones entering the Philippine area of responsibility, with the latest, Typhoon Obet,(international name: Saudel), being the 15th for the year.

In August 2025, the country by then had experienced only the ninth cyclone of the year, Isang (Kajiki). Benguet landslides

The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) on Saturday placed the death toll due to weather-induced calamities at 32, starting the count from ‘Luis’ (Peilou) which made landfall on Aug. 3. After Luis was ‘Maymay’ (Kujiri) on Aug. 5 and ‘Neneng’ (Gaenari) on Aug. 18 but no landfall and ‘Obet’ on Aug 24, also no landfall.

At least 8 million people, or 2.3 million families, have been affected across 10 regions, the OCD said.

Among provinces, Benguet recorded the highest number of deaths with 15, all from landslides. Ten of them were in Baguio City, three in Atok town and two in La Trinidad.

Four deaths were recorded in Rizal province, with two of them due to a rockslide in Rodriguez town. One person was pinned to death by a fallen tree in Antipolo, while another drowned in Binangonan.

Batangas province recorded four deaths: one drowned in Batangas City and another in Mabini, one was electrocuted in Lipa, and another was killed in a landslide in Santa Teresita.

The other fatalities were recorded in the provinces of La Union, Quezon, Oriental Mindoro, Occidental Mindoro, and Negros Occidental, and in Caloocan City.

At least 19 people have been injured, including 12 in Benguet province.

Three people remained missing: one each in Quezon City, Manila and Batangas City.

Infra, agri damage

The affected regions as of Saturday were Regions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9, as well as the Cordillera Administrative Region, Calabarzon, the National Capital Region and Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan).

Some 25,800 people from 7,500 families were staying in 297 evacuation centers.

The OCD said about 2,900 houses had been damaged, including 349 classified as totally damaged.

Damage to infrastructure was estimated at P6.11 billion, while agricultural losses were placed at P2.32 billion.

At least 117 local government units have declared a state of calamity, with the government releasing P1.65 billion worth of relief assistance, the OCD added.

Communities along the river systems draining Mt. Pinatubo were placed on heightened alert around 11 a.m. on Saturday, after the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) warned that heavy rains could generate noneruption lahars.

Aeta passengers

Major rivers on the western side of Mt. Pinatubo still hold significant deposits from the volcano’s 1991 pyroclastic density currents, mainly mixtures of ash and rock fragments.

The potential lahar flow is likely to be confined to the upper to middle reaches of the Sto. Tomas-Marella and Bucao river systems, but could turn into muddy streamflows and flooding downstream, affecting communities in San Marcelino, San Narciso, San Felipe and Botolan.

They are among the river systems covered by a government dredging project that has been going on for the last six years.

Nine members of Aeta communities, including five children, have died in two separate incidents in Zambales and Pampanga.

In Zambales, recovered on Saturday were the bodies of two children, age 3 and 8, who went missing after a boat carrying 13 Aeta passengers capsized on Wednesday in Mapanuepe Lake in San Marcelino town.

The search was still ongoing at press time for the last missing passenger, a 26-year-old pregnant woman.

In Pampanga, a 73-year-old Aeta man died in a landslide at Barangay Pidpid in Porac town on Friday, according to Vice Gov. Dennis Pineda.

The landslide occurred about 20 kilometers south of Mt. Pinatubo amid persistent rains.

Pineda said at least 30 Aeta families had been relocated to the Pio evacuation center near the Porac town proper as a precaution.

Subic incident

At the Subic Bay Freeport, two people died and two others were injured after being buried in a landslide at Tipo High-Tech Park on Saturday.

Initial reports from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Law Enforcement Department identified the dead as Peng Jiahan, 26, a Chinese national and a sales and marketing supervisor at Fubong Environmental Technology; and Ernesto Ramos, a Filipino dump truck driver.

Details regarding the two injured victims were still being verified as of press time.

Earlier, the SBMA reported that a ‘soil erosion incident’ occurred at Tipo due to nonstop heavy rains

Four people were missing and another was rescued after a sport utility vehicle (SUV) plunged into a river when the Agana Bridge in Tarlac City collapsed Saturday night, Aug. 29, authorities said.

Nathaniel Dion, 20, was rescued shortly after the incident as authorities launched a search for the four other passengers.

The missing passengers were identified as Shanen Tuhao, 26; Paul Harvey Collado, 30, the SUV owner; James Harvey Taborlupa, 35; and Shiel Mae Taborlupa.

The Agana Bridge had been serving as an alternative route after the middle portion of the Aquino Bridge in Tarlac City collapsed shortly before midnight Friday, Aug. 28, amid heavy rains brought by the southwest monsoon.

Authorities continued search and rescue operations for the missing passengers as heavy rains persisted in the province.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and Ateneo de Manila University have urged banks and other financial institutions to use the country’s National ID Authentication Services (Nidas) to verify customers during a forum earlier this month.

The National ID Forum: Utilizing the National ID for Financial Services gathered 45 representatives from banks and other BSP-supervised financial institutions.

Meanwhile, the forum took place as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) considers asking banks and other regulated financial institutions to link their customer verification systems to the National ID database and use NIDAS for identity checks.

Additionally, Nidas enables financial institutions to verify customer identities using National ID records. It supports Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements for account opening and other financial services.

For his part, PSA Officer-in-Charge Assistant National Statistician Atty. Henedine P. Palabras said the National ID can improve access to financial services by giving Filipinos a reliable way to prove their identity.

‘For many Filipinos, access to financial services starts with one essential need: a trusted way to prove their identity,’ Palabras said.

At the same time, the forum featured discussions on how NIDAS works and how banks can integrate their systems with it. In addition, representatives from the BSP Financial Inclusion Office joined a panel discussion.

Meanwhile, Ateneo faculty member Gerald G. Divinagracia presented a KYC process map. Technical Resource Lab Director Richard P. Lozada also showed an AI-assisted National ID validation application.

Additionally, the push comes as more banks adopt the National ID in their services. On August 27, the PSA announced a partnership with Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) letting customers verify their identity and open accounts using a selfie matched against National ID records.

PSA said it will continue working with financial institutions and government agencies to expand NIDAS use and support safer digital transactions and wider access to financial services.