heavy rain continues

the streets in Manila are flooded, and there is flooding in much of nearby Pampanga and Bulacan. 

We are northwest of the areas that have had heavy rain: So we have rain but no major street flooding. 

The problem is that as the rain drains down from the mountains north of us, they might have to open the floodgates of the irrigation dams, and then we will flood quickly.  This could destroy the homes of those living near the river; we are on higher ground (as is the local evacuation center) but the last time they opened the flood gates, we had six inches of rain in our garage and house. A mess. 

 Joy is staying home from work because of the flooding in her farm in Bulacan. 

 If the floods are deep, it could destroy the recently planted rice crop in these areas.

 
Ironically since the government is cleaning out the irrigation canal near our farms, we didn't plant most of our fields (we diverted water from our fish pond to irrigation one of our rice paddies so we did plant some rice, but we couldn't flood the other fields to plant: you need to flood the rice paddies before you plant. However, the rain might allow us to plant this area.

as for other news: StrategyPage has a long essay on China's aggression in the West Philippine Sea.