Long before weather apps, the islands kept time by the wind. The cool dry amihan from the northeast; the wet, restless habagat from the southwest. To farm here was to read that calendar correctly — to plant, store, and build in step with rains you could not command.
Design with the season, not against it
The habagat is not a problem to be drained away and the amihan is not a drought to be fought. Each is a resource arriving on schedule. Catch the wet season’s water and it carries you through the dry. Ignore the pattern and you spend the year fighting the climate you happen to live in.
The seasons are not obstacles to the plan. They are the plan.
Permaculture calls this working with natural energies: placing every element so the free forces already crossing your land — sun, wind, and the two great monsoons — do the work for you. The oldest Filipino farming wisdom and the newest design science say the same thing. Listen to the wind first.