Hidilyn bags 3 golds in World Championships

 

ANOTHER RECORD Hidilyn Diaz shows grace as she lifts for gold and possibly a ticket to the next Olympics in this screen grab from the International Weightlifting Federation.

By Waylon Galvez, Manila Times

December 9, 2022 600

(UPDATE) HIDILYN Diaz-Naranjo won three gold medals to rule the 55-kilogram category of the World Championships of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in Bogota, Colombia on Wednesday (Thursday in Manila).

The 31-year-old Zamboanga City native had a total lift of 207 kilograms.

ANOTHER RECORD Hidilyn Diaz shows grace as she lifts for gold and possibly a ticket to the next Olympics in this screen grab from the International Weightlifting Federation. 

The Athlete of the Year of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) also lifted 93 kilos in the snatch and 114 kilos in the clean and jerk for her two other golds.

Rosalba Morales of Colombia won the silver and Ana Gabriela Lopez of Mexico the bronze.

The Tokyo Olympics champion tried for 117 and 121 kg but registered no lift in both attempts.

The golds were the first for Diaz-Naranjo at the World Championships, and came a year after she handed the Philippines its first Olympic gold medal.

She previously won golds in the Southeast Asian Games, the Asian Games, Asian Championship, the Asian Indoor and Mixed Martial Arts Games, and the World Cup.

The World Championships also served as a qualifying event for Diaz-Naranjo who hopes to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Morales had a total lift of 199 kg and took silver in clean and jerk, while Lopez had a total lift of 198 kg and bagged silver in snatch.

Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Jose Emmanuel "Noli" Eala congratulated Diaz.

"Hidilyn has proven once again that the fire in her heart to be second to none in her field continues to burn and remains the benchmark by which every weightlifter and Filipino athlete must measure themselves against," Eala said in a statement.

"The PSC will forever be proud of Hidilyn as the epitome of a great champion and will always provide support in her continuing quest to bring honor to our country. Mabuhay!" he said.

Filipino weightlifters Elreen Ando, Vanessa Sarno, Kristel Macrohon and Dave Lloyd Pacaldo are also expected to vie for medals at the World Championships and slots for the 2024 Olympics.

LPA to enter PH, may escalate into tropical depression – Pagasa

By Arlie O. Calalo, Manila Times

THE state-run weather agency said on Thursday that a low pressure area (LPA) still outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) may develop into a tropical depression once it enters the country and would be named "Rosal".

Weather specialist Benison Estareja of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) told The Manila Times that the LPA was last spotted some 1, 265 kilometers east of Mindanao (outside PAR).

He said its trough or extension is affecting the eastern sections of Visayas and Mindanao where cloudy skies with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms may prevail over the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the shear line or the point where the warm and cold air converge is bringing rains over Northern Luzon particularly in Cagayan, Apayao and Ilocos Norte, Pagasa said.

Quoting Pagasa's latest forecast, Estareja said the LPA will likely enter within the day (Thursday) and will move towards Eastern Visayas and Bicol Region.

"It has a moderate chance to become a tropical cyclone," said Estareja although he declined to say if this would further escalate into a tropical storm in the coming days.

In case the LPA will develop into a storm, it will have a domestic name of "Rosal", the 18th cyclone this year and the first this month, the Pagasa forecaster said.

Over Metro Manila and the rest of the country, the weather bureau said generally fair weather is likely over the next 24 hours although partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rain showers or thunderstorms may be experienced in late afternoon and night time due to the localized thunderstorms.

Developing a deep sense of religion

 

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THE liturgical season of Advent can be a good occasion for us to develop and strengthen our sense of religion, our life of piety, and our intimacy with God. We have to remember that as human beings, we often are trapped in our human and natural world and quite indifferent to the spiritual dimension of our life, let alone the supernatural goal our life is meant to pursue. Let’s do something about this predicament.

Let us hope that as we prepare for Christmas during this Advent season with our customary excitement for the holidays, we do not neglect the religious significance of Advent, and enkindle an intense desire to have a living encounter with Christ who is God who became man to be with us and to show us the way of how we ought to be, since he is the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our damaged humanity.

We cannot deny that there’s vast religious indifference and even hostility against religion today. A complex structure of rationalizations now supports religious indifference and hostility to religion. It seems that the threads of naturalism, skepticism, agnosticism, atheism, relativism, etc., have become more sophisticated, snuffing whatever religious ember that may still remain in a person or in society.

 

Nowadays, reason and empirical findings are considered the ultimate measure of things, and are made to dispute the claims of faith, steadily removing its attractiveness to the people. With this approach, piety is slowly eroded until it becomes practically dead.

  

With this trend, it is held that if things could not be fully understood and explained, if they could not be directly verified, if they are not socially, economically or politically practical, then they should be rejected. They are deemed senseless.

It’s as simple, or rather, as simplistic, as that. Such an attitude sorely misses the point that truths of faith, being spiritual and supernatural, require more than human reason to be believed. It’s a tyranny to force everyone to work only within the framework of reason and understanding alone, beyond which things simply cannot be true.

      

It sorely misses the point that we precisely need the gift of faith, because we are men of belief, more than of reason. Faith always respects reason, and always works through it, but is beyond it. It cannot be fully grasped by reason, much less by our senses. It has a longer spread, a wider scope, a deeper reach, a firmer grip on reality.

It is our faith that will tell us that we need not only to be with Christ, but also to be like Christ. And the season of Advent is a good time to develop a burning desire for this purpose. 

We need to be reminded that we have to develop an abiding and burning desire for Christ to fulfill the real purpose of our life which is precisely for us to be “another Christ.” We should be clear about this ultimate purpose of ours so we can have the proper sense of direction and focus in our life, and the corresponding urge to fulfill it.

Our problem is that we often take our life’s real and ultimate purpose for granted, preferring to sway and dance according to the music played simply by worldly conditions. We prefer to be guided by our senses and emotions, or by our reasoning alone as expressed in our man-made different ideologies, philosophies, sciences and technologies, etc. 

* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com