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As the nation prepares to honor its educators on World Teachers’ Day, Oct. 5, the government rolled out twin announcements that recognize the vital role of teachers in shaping the country’s future.

These are the release of the P1,000 World Teachers’ Day Incentive Benefit (WTDIB) and the creation of over 65,000 new teaching and nonteaching positions under the proposed 2026 national budget.

In a memorandum dated Sept. 25, the Department of Education (DepEd) directed the immediate release of the WTDIB for fiscal year 2025.

The incentive, amounting to P1,000 each, will be distributed to all public school teachers with permanent and provisional appointments, including those in community learning centers, provided they are in service on or before Oct. 5 of the school year.

Education Undersecretary Wilfredo Cabral stressed that implementing units with available funds may already begin processing payments to ensure that all eligible teaching personnel receive the incentive in time for the celebration.

Thousands of new jobs

The grant is anchored on Republic Act No. 4670, or the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, which guarantees benefits to support and uplift educators.

Meanwhile, at the launch of Project Bukas at Parañaque National High School on Sept. 29, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman announced that the proposed 2026 national budget includes funding for more than 65,000 teaching and nonteaching positions.

The initiative, Pangandaman said, aims to ease the heavy administrative load that often pulls teachers away from their core task of classroom instruction.

‘This allocation will help relieve teachers of the burden of paperwork and allow them to focus on teaching,’ she said. The budget chief also paid tribute to the education community:

‘We give thanks to the teachers, administrators and everyone who help run our schools for your for your unwavering commitment and dedication to nurturing our future generations,’ Pangandaman said.

‘Nation’s Gratitude World Teachers’ Day,’ celebrated every Oct. 5, serves as a reminder of the indispensable role teachers play in nation-building. For educators across the Philippines, this year’s observance comes with both tangible support-cash incentives and new positions-and symbolic recognition of their enduring service.

With the Sept. 30 earthquake that rocked the province, derailing the activities of the 2025 Miss Asia Pacific International pageant, the organizers were able to squeeze in a quick tour for the delegates.

After four straight days of taking part in various relief missions to help those severely impacted by the tremor, the ladies were finally able to get a much-needed day to unwind.

On Sunday morning, Oct. 5, the ladies participated in a personality development workshop with Trainstation, then headed out to the city to let their hair down.

They went to Mactan Newtown in Lapu-Lapu City to have lunch at two dining outlets of famed British chef Gordon Ramsay that recently opened in Cebu.

After having their fill of Ramsay’s signature Fish and Chips, Classic Cheeseburger, and Gordon’s Fried Chicken, the ladies then stopped by the Lapu-Lapu Monument just a few meters away.

Next in their itinerary was Magellan’s Cross, one of the most popular tourist sites in Cebu City, located at the Plaza Sugbo adjacent to the Basilica del Santo Niño compound.

Before the magnitude-6.9 earthquake halted the pageant’s benefit gala night on Tuesday, Sept. 30, the ladies were really scheduled for a tour of the province in the succeeding days.

But the organizers realigned the pageant’s events to respond to the most pressing concern of the host province, and instead held relief missions and other activities. On Oct. 1 and 2, the ladies went to the Cebu Province Warehouse to help with the packing of goods for distribution to those hit hardest by the quake.

Also on Oct. 2, the delegates underwent a mental health workshop to help them process their emotions after the tremor, and to prepare them for a visit to the quake-hit towns in northern Cebu.

On Oct. 3, the pageant brought relief goods to Daanbantayan, Medellin and San Remigio, neighboring towns of Bogo City, where the earthquake’s epicenter was traced.

The following day, they kicked off the earthquake relief program of the pageant’s official shoe provider, dubbed ‘From Glamour to Giving.’

Giannis Antetokounmpo was with the Milwaukee Bucks in practice for the first time this season Saturday, after missing the first few days of training camp while he remained in his native Greece recovering from COVID-19.

Antetokounmpo participated in non-contact work only, Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. Antetokounmpo arrived in Miami on Friday. The Bucks held media day on Monday – Antetokounmpo took part remotely – and started camp in Milwaukee on Tuesday, then flew to Miami on Thursday for a few days of workouts at Florida International University in advance of their preseason opener against the Heat on Monday.

‘I think it took a toll on my body. I’m not feeling 100% yet physically,’ Antetokounmpo said of dealing with the illness. ‘Just taking it day by day, getting back in shape. I was able to do some 5-on-0, run up and down a little bit. Tomorrow I’ll be a little better. I’ve got like 18 days until the first game so I think I’ll be fine.’ Antetokounmpo, who turns 31 in December, is entering his 13th season, all with Milwaukee. He’s a nine-time All-Star, an NBA champion, a two-time MVP, an NBA Finals MVP and he’s one of only two players who have averaged at least 30 points a game in each of the last three seasons. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder is the other.

Not having Antetokounmpo for some camp might turn out to be advantageous in at least one capacity, Rivers said. The Bucks basically know what he brings to the table. Working out without him lets the Bucks see what might happen in the minutes where he isn’t in the lineup.

‘The key to our team every year is the minutes when Giannis is off the floor,’ Rivers said. ‘So, we’ve been working on that. And so maybe that’ll help us in the long run.’

In the Philippines, which has one of the highest rates of stunting in children under five years old at 26.7 percent-higher than the global average of 22.3 percent-chronic hunger is a problem that threatens future generations.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), around 18 percent of children in the Philippines, or about 2 million, are severely ‘food poor.’ This not only points to a lack of calories but a deficiency in nutrients crucial to children’s growth and development.

Last July, Sen. Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan filed a bill seeking to address this problem by providing all public school learners from daycare centers, kindergarten to Grade 12 with fortified meals for breakfast directly sourced from the produce of local farmers and fisherfolk.

These meals could provide a lifeline for these poor children. They are not mere ‘ayuda’ nor ‘free food,’ but they create ripple effects on children’s health, well-being, and learning abilities.

Many countries have launched successful feeding programs: Thailand’s school lunch program, which is similar to Pangilinan’s measure, has reduced malnutrition and improved academic performance; South Korea’s free school meal program introduced in the early 2010s has been credited for significantly reducing behavioral issues in schools; and Brazil’s national school feeding program has been used as a benchmark for similar programs.

National feeding program

The country has a national feeding program policy under Republic Act No. 11037, but its scope is limited to undernourished children in daycare, kindergarten up to Grade 6. The Pangilinan proposal would expand the coverage up to Grade 12 and hit two birds with one stone: feed poor students and support local farmers and fishermen.

In its Year Two Report published last year titled ‘Fixing the Foundations: A Matter of National Survival,’ the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom II) underscored the role of nutrition and feeding as the foundation of quality education.

The commission acknowledged that the Philippines has made strides in improving the well-being of Filipino children in recent years.

‘(However), millions of Filipino children remain chronically malnourished, facing challenges such as poor health, inadequate nutrition, and limited learning capacity,’ it stated, noting that one in four Filipino children under five years old still experiences stunting.

Social inequity

In August, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) backed Edcom II’s call to government agencies, legislators, and local government units to take immediate action. It said undernutrition and malnutrition are a stark manifestation of social inequity, where only 25 percent of Filipino children aged six to 12 months meet the recommended energy intake; the rest were deficient in protein and healthy fats, essential for their physical growth and development.

‘Socioeconomic disparities further exacerbate these challenges, limiting many children’s access to essential early childhood care and development services. These inequities hinder their ability to achieve optimal health, learning, and productivity outcomes,’ Edcom II said.

It added that addressing these disparities demands a comprehensive approach that integrates quality early childhood education, health, and nutrition programs.

The CBCP cited the grim consequences: 48 percent of Grade one to three students are not prepared for their grade level, 80 percent of Grade three students struggle with multiplication, division, and geometry, and 30 percent are not functionally literate.

Global labor market

This has manifested in the Philippines’ poor performance in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), where it ranked 76th out of 81 participating countries in reading, math, and science.

This would have a severe impact on the competitiveness of younger generations in the global labor market, which puts a premium on a higher skill set.

Pisa noted: ‘Raising quality of education and protecting health, especially in the early years, will equip the next generation with the skills they need to meet the demands of higher productivity and higher paying jobs. Investing in the skills of this young population is essential to fuel future growth and increase household incomes.’

Without institutional help, however, poor Filipino children will be trapped in an endless cycle of poverty.

While a ‘free meal’ may be inconsequential to others, it represents a lottery ticket to many poor Filipino families that could help them escape poverty.

A major portion of Luzon is forecast to experience fair weather while rains are set to prevail in Visayas and Mindanao on Sunday, according to the state weather bureau.

In a 5 a.m. weather forecast, Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) weather specialist Obet Badrina said that while no low-pressure area is being monitored inside the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR), the southwest monsoon, or habagat, is currently affecting the country.

‘A major portion of Luzon will experience hot and fair weather with possible thunderstorms in the afternoon until evening,’ Badrina said.

Meanwhile, Kalayaan Islands will see cloudy skies and rains while partly cloudy to cloudy skies with localized thunderstorms are expected over Palawan.

‘A major portion of Visayas will also experience partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated thunderstorms,’ Badrina said.

Lastly, localized thunderstorms in the afternoon until evening are possible in a huge part of Mindanao. Badrina also shared that no gale warning is raised in any seaboards of the country but he warned mariners that thunderstorms can cause heightened waves .

Temperature forecast in the following areas:

Laoag, Ilocos Norte: 25°C to 32°C

Baguio: 16°C to 20°C

Metro Manila: 24°C to 33°C

Tagaytay: 22°C to 30°C

Tuguegarao: 24°C to 32°C

Legazpi: 24°C to 32°C

Kalayaan Islands: 25°C to 32°C

Puerto Princesa: 25°C to 32°C

Iloilo: 25°C to 32°C

Cebu 26°C to 32°C

Tacloban City: 25°C to 32°C

Zamboanga: 24°C to 33°C

Cagayan de Oro: 25°C to 32°C

Davao: 25°C to 33°C

Tropical cyclones outside PAR

Badrina also said that the two tropical cyclones monitored outside the PAR will not affect the country.

Typhoon Paolo (international name: Matmo) was spotted 930 kilometers west of extreme northern Luzon with a movement of west-northwestward at 25 km per hour. It was carrying a maximum wind speed of 140 kph and gustiness of 170 kph.

Badrina said that Paolo is heading to the southern part of China while Tropical Storm Halong may enter the northeastern boundary of PAR.

Meanwhile, Halong was located 2,190 km northeast of extreme northern Luzon with a movement of westward at 10 kph. It was packing a maximum wind speed of 65 kph and gustiness of 80 kph.

Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa on Sunday said the Department of Health (DOH) was already investigating anomalies surrounding 400 ‘idle’ health centers under the agency even ‘before the media picked it up.’

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Herbosa responded to an online interview of Health Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Dr. Albert Domingo.

‘Actually the DOH has been investigating these anomalies way before media picked it up,’ Herbosa said.

‘Several actions have been taken already and we continue to do case buildup,’ Herbosa added.

During the committee-level hearing for the DOH’s proposed budget for 2026, Herbosa tagged the agency’s health facilities enhancement program (HFEP) as the ‘flood control version’ of the agency.

The HFEP, launched in 2008, is DOH’s banner program that aims to ensure that poor and marginalized communities have access to healthcare services. With this revelation, Akbayan Party-list Rep. Chel Diokno, during the House plenary debates of the agency’s proposed budget, questioned why only 200 out of 600 health centers under the HFEP are functional despite being allocated over P170 billion in the past decade.

However, budget sponsor and Bataan 2nd District Rep. Albert Garcia clarified that while the HFEP has no ‘ghost hospitals,’ the lack of personnel and healthcare professionals to run the facilities made them non-functioning.

Garcia also said that the DOH entered into a memorandum of agreement with local governments in ‘good faith,’ as it expected them to provide personnel.

Herbosa also shared that the agency is ‘looking for options to operationalize non-functioning completed health facilities.’ Meanwhile, when asked what kind of actions the agency had already taken in relation to the investigation, Domingo said ‘they are actions meant for mandated investigative bodies and the formal Courts of law.’

The duo of Dominic Escobar and Kymani Ladi made the most of their first and last taste of the storied Ateneo-La Salle rivalry.

Bolstered by the efforts of the one-and-done cogs, the Blue Eagles escaped Green Archers, 81-74, after squandering a commanding lead in the UAAP Season 88 men’s basketball tournament on Sunday at Mall of Asia Arena.

While Escobar and Ladi paced their early outburst, but it was Shawn Tuano who came out with the push Ateneo needed to get to the finish line after La Salle’s herculean comeback.

‘I’m not going to take away from these players, especially the new guys,’ Ateneo coach Tab Baldwin said.

‘We’ve got several guys who have never played in this rivalry before, so I’m not going to take away from them what they accomplished in the first three quarters.’ Ateneo led by as much as 31 against La Salle, and seemed headed for an easy blowout.

But Green Archers refused to fold, unloading a 19-0 run to start the fourth quarter and shaving the lead to 11, 68-57, 3:45. Tuano, though, sank back-to-back buckets for a 73-59 lead with 3:19 to go, giving the Blue Eagles enough cushion to fend off the Green Archers’ advances until the final buzzer.

Tuano finished with 15 points for Ateneo, which kept its grasp of the top seed at 4-0.

Escobar and Ladi also both finished with near double-doubles of 15 points and nine rebounds each in the victory.

La Salle dropped to the standings with a 2-2 record, tying with the University of the Philippines, which was its dance partner in last year’s Season 87 Finals.

Sometime in October 2022, there was a rumor that I have died. Even my siblings and friends received condolence message for my ‘demise.’ Why? That was because the title of my column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Sunday was ‘Rest in Peace,’ with my picture and name below it! Oh well, I took it all with humor and faith, saying to myself: ‘Thank you Lord, for the advance prayers for the repose of my soul!’ In today’s Gospel (Lk. 17, 5-10), Jesus tells His disciples that faith, no matter how small like a mustard seed, is powerful, if it is deep, sincere, and real. Like the disciples, we pray today: ‘Lord, increase our faith!’ We must learn to believe, trust, and surrender everything and everyone to God in faith. What each of us needs to be reminded of again and again is that we have a Master whom we serve and obey. May we not fall into the trap of entitlement and compensation as we go about doing God’s work. ‘When you have done all, you have been commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ Lord, increase our faith! Help us to believe more, and doubt less; trust more, and worry less; thank more, and complain less; smile more, and frown less; venture more, and fear less. Amen!

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did not want Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong to step down as special adviser to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), according to Malacañang.

In an interview on dzMM on Sunday, Palace press officer Claire Castro said the president asked for a review of Magalong’s appointment to the ICI not because of the mayor’s alleged connection to the questionable Baguio City projects linked to the contractor couple Pacifico ‘Curlee’ and Cezarah ‘Sarah’ Discaya, as he was insinuating.

‘The President’s directive was never meant to throw Mayor Magalong under the bus, but rather to clarify and address the issue of his dual role in the ICI,’ Castro noted.

According to Castro, Marcos originally intended Magalong to serve as both special adviser and investigator of the ICI. But since Magalong did not intend to resign as mayor, he could only serve as special adviser, as an additional role of adviser may compromise his responsibilities as the elected mayor of Baguio City.

The president also wanted to make sure that his appointment would not violate the ban on elected officials from serving in another public office, she said.

‘The concern was that if he continued to receive information or conduct investigations, his dual role at the ICI could be questioned, which may be against the Constitution and the Local Government Code,’ Castro explained.

‘That was all the legal team was supposed to review. Unfortunately, he immediately stepped down, which was not what the President intended,’ she added.

On Sept. 26, merely 13 days after he was appointed, Magalong submitted his resignation from the ICI following the press briefing of Castro, announcing that Marcos wanted his legal team to review the mayor’s role in the commission so as not to compromise the integrity of the fact-finding body.

He was replaced by another retired police general, former Philippine National Police chief Rodolfo Azurin.

At that point, he was still cordial, saying his exit was ‘not an easy choice, but necessary’ after questionable transactions in his city’s public works surfaced in the ICI ongoing probe.

According to the Baguio mayor, he would not ‘allow these doubts to weaken the ICI and its mandate,’ adding: ‘That is why I have chosen to step aside, not to abandon the fight (against corruption), but to protect the very integrity of the fight.’

Tennis court, parking building

Magalong’s name was dragged in the P110-million tennis court and parking building project awarded by the Baguio city government in 2022 to St. Gerrard Construction Company, one of the construction firms owned by the controversial Discayas.

He denied there was corruption in the bidding for the project, calling the insinuations ‘below the belt,’ and ordered a third-party audit to be conducted on all projects constructed by the Discayas in the city.

On Oct. 2, during a Senate hearing, Magalong said he was ‘eased out’ of the ICI after he ‘struck a nerve’ with his efforts to unmask those behind the multibillion-peso flood control scandal. He claimed that Castro appeared to be ‘taking orders from someone else,’ but declined to identify who that might be.

For her part, Castro maintained she was not the one who brought up the issue of the tennis court project.

‘We did not say anything negative about him, nor did we make any accusations of any anomaly. It’s up to him to respond regarding the tennis court issue, but we are not making any allegations against him,’ she said.

She also denied that the President or another official had instructed her to undermine his reputation.

‘I hope that before Mayor Magalong makes insinuations, he should be sure of his statements. He should not make claims unless he is certain and informed,’ Castro said.

Policy experts from the University of the Philippines (UP) are urging Congress to strip the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) of its disaster risk reduction (DRR) functions, citing the allegations of massive corruption hounding the agency.

In a policy note released on Friday, the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) called on lawmakers to ‘review the mandate of the DPWH, rightsize its operations, and transfer its DRR functions to a dedicated agency, such as the proposed Department of Water Resources, identified as a priority legislation by the President.’

‘The data presents an undeniable case: the DPWH bears a massive responsibility for disaster risk reduction, but it is constrained by a legacy structure that is not only insensitive to natural hazards, but also susceptible to corruption,’ they said. The DPWH is currently facing heightened scrutiny over anomalous public works projects that are either substandard or declared finished only on paper, their budgets milked for kickbacks under a scheme among its officials, private contractors, and lawmakers who maneuvered to have the projects funded.

An NCPAG analysis of the DPWH budget from 2023 to 2025 showed that the agency’s DRR-related allocations have consistently amounted to 70 percent to 80 percent of its total budget.

Roads as ‘flood interventions’

This, they said, included not only funding for the official flood management program but also its budget for roads, bridges, evacuation sites and operation centers.

The current budget framework for the DPWH has kept these different programs in different silos, the NCPAG said, thus ‘breeding inefficiencies and potential redundancies in implementation that ultimately weakens (our) long-term resilience.’

The experts took particular issue with the DPWH budget for road infrastructure, which they found to be the ‘single largest line item for flood mitigation (which) is not officially counted as such.’

A special provision in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) stipulates that all road projects must provide adequate drainage systems and must take into consideration the increase in the volume of rainfall-‘practically classifying all road projects as flood mitigation interventions,’ they noted.

In 2025, funding for the construction, repair and rehabilitation of roads reached P541.98 billion, or half of the DPWH’s entire 2011 budget and more than double the budget of the combined official and nonofficial flood control programs in 2024.

‘This means that DPWH has, for decades, executed the largest flood control projects in the country through its road programs. Unfortunately, this correlation is rarely looked into, if not, glossed over entirely in fiscal reporting and project monitoring and evaluation,’ the NCPAG said.

‘We’re kept in the dark’

Moreover, road projects ‘are not primarily evaluated on their flood control performance despite the presence of flood-specific guidelines and standards, making it extremely difficult to hold anyone accountable when drainage components do fail,’ they added.

The same goes for bridges, which are mandated by law to incorporate seismic standards and a core component of the government’s effort to reduce the impact of natural hazards.

But like flood control projects, funding for bridges are now spread across three programs: the official DPWH bridge program, the Convergence and Special Support Program, and foreign-assisted projects.

Evacuation centers

‘The resulting phenomenon is where we were kept in the dark. The DRR and climate change adaptation dimension of roads and bridges are obscured and concealed under generic headings of ‘roads’ and ‘bridges,’ misleading us into thinking that roads, bridges, and DRR-related projects are mutually exclusive priorities,’ they said.

‘Since roads and bridges are assessed mainly in terms of connectivity and mobility rather than on their resilience to disasters and climate change factors as should be intended, it understates the scale of actual government spending on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, skewing accountability,’ the NCPAG added.

Apart from hard infrastructure, the DPWH is also involved in the construction of evacuation centers and DRRM operations centers, which ‘has grown quickly’ under President Marcos’ term, they said.

In the 2025 national budget, the DPWH listed 1,869 evacuation centers and 158 operations centers with funding of P3.04 billion and P245 million, respectively. That translates to an average of about P3 million per evacuation center and P2.5 million per operations center.

Over the three-year period from 2023 to 2025, the agency earmarked a total of P7.7 billion for 2,535 evacuation centers and P423 million for 168 operations centers.

But while the number of projects for 2025 surged, the total budget of P3.28 billion did not rise proportionally. This suggests that the agency may be building smaller, lower-cost facilities-or ‘it could point to something else entirely,’ the NCPAG authors said.

Despite all this, they noted little improvement in disaster resilience, citing persistent flooding and high levels of infrastructure damage in provinces, such as Albay, Oriental Mindoro, Ilocos Norte and Cagayan-all areas that already host hundreds of flood control projects.

‘As the agency that has been receiving the highest funding for DRR in the past years, its investments in infrastructure are certainly suspect and wanting. Its flood control projects alone are supposed to abate damage, but with many of these projects being substandard, if existing at all, it is no wonder that the impact of flooding to communities remains high,’ they said.

Repeated pattern

In Albay alone, there been P16.2 billion spent on 273 flood control projects there since 2018. ‘Yet even with this investment, the province lost as much P7.3 billion in infrastructure damage across a six-year period (2017-2023), the highest in the country,’ the NCPAG noted.

This pattern, they added, ‘repeats across the entirety of the Philippines. Oriental Mindoro’s allotment of P11.3 billion across 138 flood control projects failed to avert P4.1-billion infrastructure-specific damage; not counting other losses in agriculture, human lives, and livelihood.’

That being said, they argued that the DPWH ‘cannot perform its DRR functions if it continues to be hampered by legacy structures that are not risk-sensitive and highly susceptible to corruption.’ The NCPAG policy note was authored by a group composed of Kristoffer Berse, Kim Robert de Leon, Micah Paula Milante, Francis Miguel Garcia, Mape Estellena, Olivia Bondad, Ramon Caballero, Maria Hontanosas, Eugene Beltran, Ajay Caingat, Leila Alejandria, John Coby Cabuhat, Thea Panares and Magjorie Avila.