PAG-ASA: 40-DEGREE CELSIUS SUMMER LOOMS
[PHOTO
AT LEFT - Photo is loading... The water level at Magat Dam in Isabela continues
to approach the minimum operational level for the hydroelectric power plant as a
result of the drought caused by El Niño. Residents in the region are bracing for
more blackouts amid the dry spell. JONJON VICENCIO]
MANILA, FEBRUARY 21, 2010 (STAR) By Evelyn Macairan - The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) yesterday raised the possibility that Northern Luzon would experience 40-degree Celsius temperatures either in April or May as a result of the El Niño phenomenon.
In Metro Manila, temperatures may reach 36 or 37 degrees Celsius by April or May, which may seem to be “not that warm, but if the duration is longer or if it would last for a week, it would still have a severe effect,” Pagasa weather bureau chief Nathaniel Cruz said.
Pagasa said temperature in the National Capital Region (NCR) would range between 22 to 33 degrees Celsius from today (Feb. 21) until Feb. 24, while Tuguegarao would be slightly cooler, between 17 to 31 degrees in the next four days.
Baguio, on the other hand, would have temperatures of 14 to 24 degrees Celsius.
The weather bureau said Northern Luzon would experience mostly cloudy skies with light rains and isolated thunderstorms while Visayas would have mostly cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers and thunderstorms.
The rest of the country would be partly cloudy to at times cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms.
Moderate to strong winds coming from the Northeast and East would prevail throughout the archipelago and coastal waters along these areas would be moderate to rough.
Sufficient water level
Meanwhile, the threat of a long dry spell that has already ravaged farmlands in Northern Luzon has brought panic to the agricultural sector in Region 3.
A ranking official of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), however, assured the public that there will be sufficient water supply for farmlands within the service area of Pantabangan Dam.
“Pantabangan dam water level of 204.95 meters as of Friday is still above operation rule curve,” said Antonio Nangel, department manager of the NIA-Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System (UPRIIS).
Nangel said Pantabangan Dam can sufficiently sustain the water requirements of standing cropping and can even accommodate the quick turnaround cropping or third cropping.
“Given the 102,550 hectares we programmed this dry cropping season and its total water requirement of 1,283.71 million cubic meters (MCM) until harvest time in April, Pantabangan Dam is still at the ideal or safe level of 194.00 meters,” he said.
This means that the 194-meter water elevation at the dam’s reservoir after the April harvest would still be enough to provide irrigation for around 25,000 hectares for a third cropping season and for ratooning, or both at the same time.
Rice ratooning is the ability of the rice plant to regenerate new tillers after harvest.
UPRIIS is strongly pushing for rice ratooning because it has low irrigation requirement, lower production cost, and higher yield per unit area in less time.
Nangel said the sufficient water from Pantabangan Dam was a result of judicious release of water from the dam during the onslaught of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” last year.
Bulacan residents, however, blamed Pantabangan Dam officials in October for floods that inundated the towns of Pulilan, Calumpit and Hagonoy.
Subsidies to Isabela farmers eyed
In Isabela, Lakas-Kampi-CMD presidential bet Gilbert Teodoro said that national and local government agencies must provide conditional cash transfers and other forms of subsidies to farmers in drought-stricken provinces in the face of an imminent onslaught of El Niño to the agricultural sector.
Teodoro visited the drought-stricken Isabela province the other day and called for the full implementation of the law that mandates construction of rainwater catchments in every barangay as a long-term solution to the El Niño-induced dry spell.
Meeting with local officials of Isabela led by Reps. Rodolfo Albano III and Faustino Dy III, the former defense chief cited an urgent need to provide farmers who lost their standing crops to the dry spell with immediate forms of assistance such as cash-for-work programs and conditional cash transfers.
“Sorry if they will say I’m politicking but the important thing to address right now is how our farmers and their families will eat,” Teodoro said in Ilocano.
As a long-term measure to mitigate the effects of climate change, Teodoro proposed the full implementation of the decades-old Republic Act 6716, which mandates every barangay to construct catchments and other facilities that will collect rainwater during the wet season.
The collected water can then be treated or purified and used to supplement water requirements in critical areas during dry spells.
Isabela was recently placed under a state of calamity after incurring P1 billion in losses to its agriculture sector as a result of the El Niño-induced drought in the province.
The move was done to allow local government units in the province to channel more funds to address the problem.
Teodoro agreed with Albano’s suggestion on the need to provide subsidies to Isabela’s drought-hit rice and corn producers and suggested that the Departments of Agriculture (DA) and of Agrarian Reform (DAR) sit down to ensure that there would be “convergence” in addressing the plight of farmers in the province. - Jaime Laude, Dino Balabo