ILOILO City – Families displaced by the El Niño phenomenon would be getting relief goods from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
DSWD Region 6 currently has 11,338 food packs ready for distribution when needed, said Renante Lasay, project development officer III of the regional office.
According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), the El Niño may get worse in April.
Local government units (LGUs) could request for the food packs after declaring a state of calamity, said Lasay.
“Relief augmentation man lang kami. Ang frontline sa any disaster is the LGU,” he explained.
Each DSWD food pack contains six kilos of rice, five cans of sardines and five cans of corned beef.
According to Lasay, DSWD-6 requested for more food packs from their central office.
Aside from the food packs, DSWD-6 also has a standby fund of P3 million.
“Para anytime kon ano kinahanglan sang LGUs makahatag kita sang bulig,” said Lasay.
As of this writing, though, no LGUs has made a request for food packs.
There could be way-below normal rainfall in 26 provinces and below-normal rainfall in 57 provinces, according to Pagasa.
“April is when we see severe impacts in terms of meteorological drought,” said Analiza Solis, officer-in-charge of the Pagasa Climate Monitoring and Prediction Section.
Solis explained drought is a condition marked by either three consecutive months of way-below normal rainfall or five consecutive months of below-normal rainfall.
Dry spell, on the other, is either two consecutive months of way-below normal rainfall conditions or three consecutive months of below-normal rainfall.
“We’ll likely have a prolonged dry season,” said Solis.
Early termination of the northeast monsoon or amihan this year and the possible delay in the onset of the 2019 rainy season due to El Niño mean the country is facing prolonged dryness, she said./PN
