Senator Grace Poe yesterday said that the water scarcity being experienced by several provinces “is a cause for alarm on top of the killer heat.”
Poe, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said several cities and municipalities have taken matters into their own hands by declaring a state of calamity.
The senator said with the declaration, local government units (LGUs) can tap local funds to buy water for their constituents.
Others would need bigger resources to provide irrigation for farmlands and water for livestock to further avert agricultural losses, Poe said.
“Our people in the provinces thirst for help,” she stressed.
The initiatives of the LGUs, she said, should turn up the heat on concerned national government agencies so they can act with urgency.
“El Nino is here to stay until May. It is not too late to bring in solutions to the provinces to mitigate the impact of this weather phenomenon,” Poe said.
Almost all areas across the country, including the National Capital Region (NCR), have been experiencing below-normal rainfall this April, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).
From April 1 to April 16, nearly the entire country felt the impact of the ridge of a high-pressure area (HPA) with 40 percent or less than normal rainfall for the period, PAGASA earlier said.
PAGASA said there were only localized thunderstorms in the past days.
The ridge of the HPA extending over the eastern sections of Northern and Central Luzon was responsible for the rainfall reduction, it added. Because of such, the public must brace for hot and humid weather.