The title of this post sums it all. It came from one of my PhD students who is with a government bureau tasked to look at agriculture in many provinces around the Philippines. She has been traveling and assessing the effects of the latest ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) in the Philippines.

I would agree. It is really bad. And like her, I have been traveling in many places in the Philippines since December and I have noticed that this 2010 ENSO episode could tip the Philippines over the edge. In Ilocos and Cagayan Valley, I have seen wilted corn, dried up fields with the rice crop planted last December failing to make it to harvest and the wilted veggies. Perhaps nothing hit me hard (being a pinakbet lover that I am) that the eggplants were being harvested and they were almost as thin as a purple “sitaw”. Since calabasa is a crop that requires a lot of water, we may be served pakbet with only sitaw and no talong, okra and calabasa!

The latest stats on how  much has been lost due to the ENSO is in the news and it runs at least to 3 B pesos. The loss can be as much as 10 B or more considering we are just at the start of the 4 month long hot and dry season. My student briefed the class about the fact that ruminants (cows and carabaos) are now dying. The network news report that chickens are dying in central Luzon poultry farms. In Cagayan, I was told by farmers that they may have to cull their “itik” since these birds cannot survive the expected long periods of extreme heat.

And this remark came from Tuguegarao and Iguig residents! Cagayanos are used to living in summer temps of up to 40 C and to a certain extent, that is a source of pride. But now they are worried that they would have this temps for long stretches of time.

I am not a stranger to bad ENSO episodes. I spent a few years in the land of ENSO a.k.a northern Australia. I have experienced the worst of the dry and the wet. But Australians especially those living in regional Australia, are used to this climate phenomenon. Filipinos have experienced ENSO but I believe that nobody at present has experienced this kind of ENSO we have now. I keep on telling my students that this kind of ENSO is considered bad even by Australians.

While ENSO has periodically affected Australia for millions of years  (The kangaroo is an example of a mammal that is perfectly adapted to ENSO!), Australian food security isn’t threatened much by a bad episode since Australia is a large country but has just 20 million or so people. The Philippines on the other hand, has 90 million or more people, an archipelagic country and is a rice eating nation that now imports a huge fraction for its needs. Rice as we all know is a water intensive crop.

We don’t really know if this ENSO is somewhat directly linked with global warming although some climate models predict that we will have a global climate pattern called a  “general ENSO state” (Collins et al. 2005, Climate Dynamics, 24, 89-104) which means more expected and we hope not permanent ENSOs and probably drier conditions on our part of the planet.

The current ENSO and its agricultural effects has environmental scientists worried. On the human health side, many Filipinos have no experience of prolonged hot and dry weather. This is revealed that for many of us,  the experience of extremely hot weather is limited to “Holy Week” and that really only lasts for 4 days!  Extended periods of having 38 C  or more temps in Metro Manila may result in a higher death rate among the elderly and those with cardiovascular health problems similar to what was experienced in the European summer heat wave of 2005, when an estimated 10,000 people or more died. The Europeans were not used to having prolonged spells of temperatures above 33 C.  While PAGASA may forecast Manila to have 34-35 C temps, our heat island research points out that the real temps due to the effects of a built -up environment can be 3-4 C more than the forecast temperature. So we can have extended periods of having 39-40 C temperature. People living in desert climates are used to this and have behavioral adaptations to cope with this, but I doubt if we Filipinos have these adaptations.

But as a wag told me, we Filipinos are particularly adapted to talking about politics. (FV posts are a supreme example!)

But seriously, the food security situation is beginning to look dire and it is just the end of February. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may turn over the presidential palace to her successor on June 30  with a famine on her train. Ask any of your grandparents who lived through World War II. They would tell you that the Filipino people experienced famine  within the last century only during the Japanese occupation and that was not due to climate change but to colonial master change!

The next President of the Philippines should now be aware that even as a candidate poverty or corruption  are not the immediate problems but food security. Surely these are problems but their solutions will take more than one presidential term. Food security can be immediately addressed at the start of the term.

And last September Catholic bishops ordered an “Oratio Imperata” against the rain. Now they are ordering another for rain!

If I were God……….I would say “Wait a minute. You brought this upon yourselves!”

And BTW God is still kind,  He/She allowed the evolution of the supreme ENSO veggie which is  none other than sigarilyas. This bean requires little water or fertilizer, and is nutritious filled with protein and vitamins and likes this kind of weather we have now.

And this I reflect on as I gaze into a cloudless Philippine sky and recall my days as a student living in northern Australia’s dry!

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