Concerted action vs El Niño

BY INQUIRER EDITORIAL

OCTOBER 7, 2026

IMPACT Reduced rainfall associated with El Niño leaves cracks in rice fields in Catigbian, Bohol, in this Sept. 5 photo. —LEO UDTOHAN

If the scientific community’s dire predictions will come to pass, the active El Niño weather phenomenon that is widely predicted to reach its peak in the last quarter of this year—with the impact to be felt well into 2027—will be among the worst on record, possibly exceeding the strength of previous cycles dating back to 1950.

Unfortunately for the Philippines, it was listed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of the United Nations among the countries “at highest risk of severe humanitarian impacts” caused or worsened by the “Super El Niño,” which is characterized by hotter and drier conditions, meaning prolonged droughts, possible water shortages, extreme heat, and consequently further slowdown in the broader economy.

“El Niño in Spanish means boy child—but it has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world. We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies,” warned WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo.

Warum ein Tag ohne Arbeit dein Leben positiv verändert

Die Woche hat sieben Tage. Das ist kein Zufall der Verwaltung, sondern ein Zyklus, der älter ist als jeder Kalender, den wir heute verwenden.

Ein Zyklus braucht einen Abschluss.

Wer durchgehend arbeitet, sammelt Ergebnisse, die er selbst nie betrachtet. Die Woche endet, eine neue beginnt, und zwischen beiden liegt kein Moment, in dem das Geschaffene angesehen und gewürdigt wird. Nach einem Jahr steht viel da. Erlebt wurde wenig davon.

Das Gebot dazu ist alt und einfach. Sechs Tage sollst du arbeiten und all deine Werke tun. Der siebte Tag ist ein Ruhetag.

Die Wortwurzel von Schabbat bedeutet ablassen, aufhören, ruhen. Wichtig ist das man nicht seinen Geschäften nachgeht.

Und dieser Gedanke war einmal revolutionär.

Im Altertum kannte niemand einen wöchentlichen Ruhetag. Die Griechen verspotteten die Juden als Faulenzer, weil diese einen Tag in der Woche ruhten. Erst allmählich übernahmen andere Völker die Idee.

Das Gebot nennt den siebten Tag. In der Zählung, die diesem Gebot zugrunde liegt, beginnt die Woche am Sonntag. Der siebte Tag ist damit der Samstag, und genau dort liegt der Schabbat bis heute.

Der Sonntag ist der erste Tag. Die frühen Christen verlegten die Versammlung auf diesen Tag, weil die Auferstehung auf ihn fällt, und Konstantin machte ihn im Jahr 321 zum staatlichen Ruhetag.

Was an einem solchen Tag geschieht, kennt jeder, der ihn einmal wirklich gehalten hat. Die Hast fällt ab. Gespräche werden länger. Die Familie ist tatsächlich anwesend statt nur im selben Raum. Und irgendwann tritt eine Stille ein, in der die Fragen auftauchen, die unter der Woche keinen Platz hatten.

Genau dort liegt der eigentliche Zweck.

Ein Mensch, der sechs Tage in der Bewegung steht, verliert den Überblick über die Richtung. Er funktioniert gut und weiß immer weniger, wofür. Der Ruhetag stellt die Richtung wieder her. Er bringt zurück, was im Betrieb untergeht: Besonnenheit, Dankbarkeit, Frieden, das Gespür für das Wesentliche.

Bemerkenswert ist dabei die Reihenfolge. Diese Einsicht stand Jahrtausende vor jeder Messung fest. Beobachtung im lebenden Menschen über viele Generationen ist eine eigene Form von Wissenschaft, und sie braucht keine Geräte.

Noch etwas gehört zu diesem Tag.

Die Überlieferung versteht ihn als Tag, der dem Schöpfer gewidmet ist. Darin liegt mehr als eine fromme Geste. Wer einen Tag lang aufhört, selbst zu wirken, erkennt wieder, dass vieles ohne sein Zutun geschieht. Das Getreide wächst, das Herz schlägt, die Erde dreht sich. Diese Erfahrung richtet einen Menschen anders aus als jede Planung.

Und wer seine Richtung wiederfindet, findet gewöhnlich auch den Sinn wieder, der ihm unter der Woche abhandengekommen ist.

Die Tradition kennt diesen Rhythmus übrigens in mehreren Größenordnungen. Der siebte Tag der Woche gehört der Ruhe, und ebenso jedes siebte Jahr den Feldern, damit der Boden sich erholt.

Was für den Acker gilt, gilt für den Menschen.

Sechs Tage gehören dem Werk. Einer gehört dem, Architekten des Universums.

The week has seven days. This is not an administrative coincidence, but a cycle older than any calendar we use today.

A cycle requires closure.

Those who work continuously amass results they never actually examine. The week ends, a new one begins, and between them lies no moment to view and appreciate what has been created. After a year, there is much to show for it—yet little of it was truly experienced.

The commandment regarding this is ancient and simple: Six days you shall labor and do all your work; the seventh day is a day of rest.

The root of the word "Shabbat" signifies desisting, ceasing, and resting. The crucial point is that one does not attend to one's business affairs.

And this idea was once revolutionary.

In ancient times, no one knew of a weekly day of rest. The Greeks mocked the Jews as idlers because they rested one day a week. Only gradually did other peoples adopt the idea.

The commandment specifies the seventh day. In the reckoning underlying this commandment, the week begins on Sunday. Thus, the seventh day is Saturday, and that is precisely where Shabbat falls to this day.

Sunday is the first day. Early Christians shifted their gatherings to this day because the Resurrection occurred then, and in 321 AD, Constantine established it as an official day of rest.

Anyone who has truly observed such a day knows what happens on it. The rush falls away. Conversations lengthen. Family members are genuinely present, rather than merely occupying the same room. And eventually, a silence sets in—a silence that allows questions to surface for which there was no room during the busy week.

That is precisely where the true purpose lies.

A person who spends six days in constant motion loses sight of the direction they are taking. They function efficiently, yet know less and less what it is all for. The day of rest restores one’s sense of direction. It brings back what gets lost in the daily grind: composure, gratitude, peace, and a feeling for what truly matters.

The sequence here is remarkable. This insight was established millennia before any form of measurement existed. Observing living human beings over many generations constitutes a form of science in its own right—one that requires no instruments.

There is something else to this day, too.

Tradition regards it as a day dedicated to the Creator. There is more to this than a mere pious gesture. Anyone who stops acting on their own behalf for a day comes to realize once again that much happens without their intervention. The grain grows, the heart beats, the earth turns. This experience reorients a person in a way that no amount of planning can.

And those who rediscover their direction usually also rediscover the sense of purpose that may have slipped away during the week.

Incidentally, tradition recognizes this rhythm on various scales. The seventh day of the week is set aside for rest, just as every seventh year belongs to the fields, allowing the soil to recover.

What applies to the field applies to the human being.

Six days belong to work. One belongs to the Architect of the Universe.

 

BIZ BUZZ: Fortune favors these Pinays

BY EMMANUEL JOHN ABRIS

OCTOBER 7, 2026

Four Filipino women have landed on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Asia list, with leaders in fintech, banking and property representing the Philippines.

Mynt’s Martha Sazon leads the Philippine contingent at No. 35, followed by Land Bank of the Philippines’ Lynette Ortiz at No. 77, Megaworld’s Lourdes Gutierrez-Alfonso at No. 87 and UnionBank’s Ana Maria Aboitiz-Delgado at No. 98.

That queer iconic line

I tend to have gay friends. In fact, I have so many queer friends that I could complete the acronym.

When the iconic monologue of Miss Eugene Domingo from the movie “Ang Babae sa Septic Tank 2” became a cultural symbol in the LGBT+ community, I began to look beneath it. These four lines are an iconic piece of Filipino pop culture, often clipped and shared online because they speak a rotten truth about how our society only views queer people—the life of the party, the rainbows to a dull world, the humor to our misfortunes, and the sidekicks to our mainstream stories.

Looking at my seven-year friendship with my gay best friend, I know how profound those sentences are—stripped of Miss Eugene’s comedic delivery.  

“Masaya ‘pag may bakla.”

I first met him in the seventh grade, when he had so many “girlfriends” and “girl” friends that most of the boys in our class despised him. Today, this is a usual inside joke for both of us, but as a 12-year-old, it was a strategy my friend had to adopt because he wanted to prove himself to his deeply masculine and patriarchal father.

We didn’t know each other that well at this age; we didn’t bother to. Our interactions were limited to high school small talk, but it was enough for me to see right through him. I didn’t mean to assume, but looking at him, I just knew he was faking it.

By the ninth grade, we found ourselves being that duo within our friend group. I just woke up one day to find myself cheering frantically for him while he was on stage, dancing as if he had no bones, to “Boombayah” by Blackpink. Soon, he became the friend who would teach me how to pose stylishly, give me tips on how to get my crush’s attention , and effortlessly recite the pros and cons of my skincare products.

Yes, he could make us smile easily or burst into laughter without the stunts. But to say he was just the “funny gay friend” would be misleading—a testament to the exact media stereotype Miss Eugene was mocking. His humor was not merely for our entertainment; it was also his way of letting us know that despite the strict parameters of his life, he chose joy. A contagious one.

“Mahal ko ang mga bakla.”

Seven years into our friendship, he has witnessed most of my highs and lows. As we go through the journey of being naive, my gay friend is the first to see, laugh, and listen as I fell in love—and as I fell into despair when it ended. He became my unpaid therapist throughout the endless teenage dramas, offering the advice only he could truly define: to fight despite it all.

“Gusto ko ang mga bakla.”

The irony is that gay people, and the queer community as a whole, spend so much energy making us happy, yet society offers them only the barest, most volatile band-aid protections.

The daily, unwarranted remarks my gay best friend has to dodge in the streets like “bading,” the backhanded taunts “sayang,” and the closet he still hides in from his own father are just the symptoms of a much bigger societal disease; the systemic denial of equal civil rights and the deafening absence of institutional safety nets for queer people.

Having queer friends means realizing all of this—that our society will gladly consume queer talent, media, and culture, but locks them out of its legal protections.

Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and all those navigating their identities are people who have mastered the labor of turning murky oppression into colorful resilience—one that we should not romanticize. Individuals should not be required to turn their pain into entertainment just to make their existence palatable to a world that refuses them baseline dignity.

Resilience, after all, is just a poetic word for survival.

Queer people deserve human rights, not just applause for surviving the lack of it.

Thus, fighting alongside them means recognizing that the joy and laughter they give to us is not a mere rainbow splashed onto our grayish world, but a hard-fought victory won each day against a society that constantly tries to take it away.

To be queer should not mean performing for the appeasement of an audience.

Being part of the LGBTQ+ community is not only about being the life of the party, the emotional shield for people’s misfortunes, or the comedic sidekicks to mainstream love teams. Rather, being individuals deserving of dignity, citizens entitled to equal rights, brave people who should never have to compromise peace just to live and love, and above all, friends worthy of the exact same joy they freely give.

“Dapat may bakla.”

WAVE BREAKERS ALONG COASTAL ROAD

Precast concrete hexapods are being placed along the Coastal Road near Sta. Ana Wharf to dissipate wave energy and protect the shoreline from erosion and storm surges.

Meanwhile, the Sta. Ana Wharf Bridge, part of Segment D of the Coastal Road project is nearing completion and targeted for opening this year.

: PNA photos by Robinson Niñal Jr.

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