On this first day of September, 2018

To walk our talk about our earlier suggestion to highlight good news from now on, we start today’s article with happy news.

Our Filipino athletes are winning medals for us at the Asian Games! So far, the Philippines has four gold, 1 silver, and 13 bronze medals!

And we are prouder still to announce that our Filipino women bagged all the gold and the silver so far! Hurray! In fact, overall, our female athletes won 12 of the Philippines’ 18 medals in the Asian Games.

Cheers and salute to all these gold-winners: our 19-year-old Cebuana, Margielyn Didal in the women’s street skateboard game, to Rio Olympian and weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, to golfer Yuka Saso, and to the national women's golf trio of Saso, Bianca Pagdanganan, and Lois Kaye Go.

Congratulations as well to our silver medalist, 22-year-old Kiyomi Watanabe who is a Sports Science student at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

To all our other athletes, medalists or not, thank you for representing our country in this year’s Asian Games held in Indonesia. You all have done our country proud and you are inspiring more of our youth to aspire to bring out the best in them and to share with our country.

Another good news is that today is the first day of September, 2018, the start of the BER months leading to Christmas Day in DecemBER.

With gratitude, we bid August goodbye, and still with gratitude and faith, we hold on to this happy September 1 reminder from Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all our heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

We will also keep in our hearts this August 31 verse from 1 Corinthians1:25: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Rains accompanied this year’s end of August and more are forecast to come in the first days of September. Keep safe and dry then, everyone, as we brace ourselves to meet this ninth month of the year.

How far can the Filipinos remain patient with the present food crisis and unabated inflation? Will there be happy respite and genuine, comprehensive solutions to these present challenges adversely affecting almost everyone, not only the poor in this country?

Not only are we confronted with increasing prices of food and other items, basic necessities like rice and fish are out of stock. Goodness!

Only two years into the Duterte administration, our people are experiencing high rice and fish prices, among others. Rather than resort to more comprehensive, urgent resolutions to solve the shortage, the bright minions of Duterte import rice and galunggong.

To add insult to injury, the imported bukbuk-infested rice is unfit for human consumption like the formalin-tainted imported galunggong from China! How low will Piñol further go to insult our people, our farmers and our fisherfolks especially?

If there is a shortage of rice and fish in our markets, then our farmers and fisherfolks are among those who need to be assisted urgently as well. We have repeatedly suggested that these valuable food producers be given regular monthly subsidies for their important task of providing food for all our people and for protecting our environment, seas, and farms.

Shall we see Duterte’s proposed billion budget increase for his office as well as the money for his planned expensive Israel trip treat for military retirees shifted instead and given to our more deserving food producers and poor?