Super El Niño

At the public hearing for the proposed 2027 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) last week, Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. expressly supported the suggested declaration of “state of national emergency” due to the El Niño weather phenomenon. It was brought out last week by Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan during the Senate finance committee hearing on the proposed 2027 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), in particular of the DA.

Local and international weather experts have repeatedly raised the alarm bells for the “Super El Niño” period projected to linger longer than expected. Our own weather experts from PAGASA warned that a “strong to very strong” El Niño is currently active in the Tropical Pacific and is expected to persist through the first half of 2027, currently peaking around the last quarter of this year.

Pangilinan, who chairs the Senate agriculture committee, floated his proposal amid the reported losses of vital agricultural crops like our staple rice and corn largely due to the early onset this year of the long dry spell. A formal state of calamity declaration allows national agencies and local government units to tap quick-response funds, impose price freezes on basic necessities and fast-track emergency procurement.

“I do agree that it is good for us to declare because, from all indications, it is a Super El Niño,” Tiu Laurel told the senators, adding: “Everybody in the world is saying it, so we better act fast.”

At the Senate hearing, the DA and attached bureaus and agencies presented a P198.3-billion budget for next year. From DA projections, a grim scenario that a strong El Niño could affect up to 4.6 million of the country’s 10.4 million farmers and fisherfolk, while threatening a decline of around one million metric tons in palay production. The DA budget included P20 billion explicitly dedicated to livestock development and competitiveness to mitigate risks of the incoming Super El Niño to these agriculture sub-sectors.

The DA secretary admitted he had not previously considered the proposed “state of emergency” for the Super El Niño. He reassured though the senators that the DA is committed to implement the proposed 2027 budget of the agency aligned with measures to bolster defense mechanisms for food production and cushion drought-related losses.

A day before the Senate budget hearing, Tiu Laurel was among our special guests, along with top executives from the Maynilad Water Services Inc. led by its chief operating officer Chris Lichauco, at our weekly Tuesday Club breakfast gathering. Tiu Laurel got a sort of a preview of the kind of questions that he would likely be asked at the Senate budget hearing. He brought along DA official DA spokesman Arnel de Mesa and they were joined by other key Maynilad engineers, namely Ronald Padua, Ryan Jamora and Rudy Baylas at the Tuesday Club that we hold at the Edsa Shangrila in Ortigas Center, Pasig City.

At the outset, the DA secretary reiterated supply of potable drinking water is the first and foremost in the order of priorities, with irrigation needs of agricultural lands coming in second in the distribution and use of water sources like Angat Dam. According to Tiu Laurel, this is in line with the declared policy of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM), with or without Super El Niño threats. Between water and food security, Tiu Laurel pointed out drinking water needs of the people take precedence over other priorities.

In response, Lichauco reassured the DA secretary Maynilad continues to monitor Angat levels, rainfall, raw-water quality, customer demand and production conditions as El Niño develops. While current conditions remain manageable, the company is maintaining its preparedness measures, given the possibility of drier conditions in the coming months.

In July 2026, Lichauco recalled the water level at Angat Dam fell to around 150.42 meters, below the 157.96-meter level recorded during the 2019 El Niño. Despite the lower reservoir level, he cited, Maynilad was able to maintain service without resorting to the rotational water interruptions experienced in 2019.

Thank God we had several months of typhoons and habagat rains that filled dams in Luzon.

But the major reason for this, Lichauco explained, is that Maynilad now has more water sources outside the Angat-La Mesa system. He mentioned these include Maynilad’s Laguna Lake treatment facilities, new water, modular treatment plants and deep wells. According to him, Maynilad has around 493 million liters a day (MLD) of treatment capacity outside the Angat-La Mesa system, reducing its dependence on Angat compared with previous years.

Lichauco pointed to Maynilad’s capital-intensive investments aimed at diversifying its raw-water sources more than a decade ago. It started, he noted, with the commissioning of Maynilad Putatan Water Treatment Plant using Laguna Lake as a raw-water source. The company has since expanded its Laguna Lake treatment capacity and developed other supplemental sources to provide additional supply buffers, he added.

The next day at the Senate budget hearing, the DA officials reported the strong, or Super El Niño, is already damaging crops and livelihoods across at least five regions – including Cagayan Valley and Bicol Region. Huge crop losses due to El Niño were also reported in CALABARZON (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal, Quezon), and SOCCSKSARGEN (South Cotabato, Cotabato-once called North Cotabato-Kudarat (as in Sultan Kudarat), Sarangani, Argen (as in General Santos City), all in south-central Mindanao.

Obviously, there is no immediate threat of the Super El Niño in Luzon provinces. So is there really a need to declare another nationwide state of emergency?

Are we not still under a state of emergency due to the Middle East crisis? PBBM already declared it under Executive Order (EO) No.110 issued just last March 24. The entire country remains under a “State of National Energy Emergency and Authorizing the Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food and Transport,” or UPLIFT for short.

Throwing money as ayuda or the cash subsidies from the government is always the easiest way out of potential crises. That in essence was largely addressed by the Supreme Court ruling last week on the ayudas in the three Congress-approved budget laws.