El Niño: Weather of Opportunism

While El Niño deprives farmlands of irrigation, it springs financial opportunities for those who seek bigger shares of the state budget. This, according militant peasant leaders, has aggravated the cycle of corruption particularly in agencies dealing with El Niño.

By GERRY ALBERT-CORPUZ
Bulatlat.com

El Niño, a weather phenomenon that brings long dry spell and agricultural devastation, is heating up politics even more. Huge amounts of money have been earmarked to mitigate the dry spell's impact but the funds have become the object of turf wars among administration and opposition politicians at the expense of the suffering farmers, leaders of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP - Peasant Movement in the Philippines) said this week.

Recent months of dry spell have affected the country's agricultural production especially in seven regions. Officials at the Department of Agriculture (DA) estimate the production loss at the onset of El Niño early this year at 114,696 metric tons of grain worth P931.2 million.

PAGASA, the country’s meteorological agency, had earlier forecast El Niño to take its peak on the third quarter of 2002: 3^rd quarter in Mindanao, 4^th quarter in Visayas /and 1^st quarter 2003 in Luzon. The bureau had to correct itself after finding that incidence of drought had starting hitting Luzon and Mindanao since early this year.

Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor has called on the private sector to help the government and do its part in cushioning the negative impact of El Niño. Montemayor's office particularly asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the immediate release of P1 billion in preparation for the long dry spell.

The DBM reportedly released more than Montemayor had asked - P5.3 billion to DA for counter-El Niño projects. But DA officials denied that they have received said amount adding that the allocation was in fact part of the budget of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) which is tasked to carry out infrastructure components of the government's Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization program.

While government officials of the Macapagal-Arroyo government are discussing the issue more in the context of politics and turf wars, budgets and fearless forecasts, no substantial efforts have apparently been made to address and arrest the devastating problem of scourging heat in the country.

Sustained crop failures and farm losses

The Citizens' Disaster Response Center (CDRC), a non-government organization doing pioneering work in relief and rehabilitation efforts in the country, last week reported that at least 128,209 individuals coming from 25,288 farming families have sustained crop failure and farm losses as a result of the unexpected early attack of El Niño. The CDRC said lack of rainfall in many El Niño-stricken areas as early as April left many farmlands arid prompting many farmers to beg for cloud-seeding operations to lessen the impact of the unexpected drought.

Apparently in many provinces irrigation which normally flows from dams has been stopped. CDRC reported that in Nueva Ecija, for instance, water level at the Pantabangan Dam had reached critical level forcing NIA officials to stop the release of irrigation water. At the Magat Dam in Cagayan and Isabela, the water reservoir has diminished by 50 percent as a result of the early drought season. The level was enough to score a giant kill against thousands of hectares of rice fields in the two provinces.

Water shortage is also likely to affect Angat Dam in Bulacan, Ambuklao Dam in Baguio City and Binga Dam in Benguet.

In Mindanao, the CDRC also monitored forest fires in some parts of Davao Oriental and del Norte that began in the municipality of Banaybanay, Davao Oriental. The fire damaged more than 100 hectares of the forest. Similar fires broke out in the towns of Kapalong and Talaingod, Davao del Norte destroying over 500 hectares of reforested areas.

El Niño politics

CRDC also said at least 217 members of Congress have pledged to release P5 million each from their budget allocation to increase DA's El Niño fund. Some congressmen later backed out after realizing that they would be funding El Niño projects even if their provincial districts are not in the El Niño "cursed areas."

Rafael Mariano, a Nueva Ecija farmer and national chair of the militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), told Bulatlat.com that his group was not surprised over the decision of some solons to renege on their promise because their respective areas are not covered by the El Niño phenomenon.

"They don't care because El Niño would not cover their farmlands during months of drought,” Mariano said. “P5 million is still a big sum that could be put more conveniently for political grandstanding projects in preparation for the 2004 national elections."

The KMP chair clarified that fund support to cushion El Niño should come from the government's political will to combat the long-dry spell in the country. "The trouble is everytime El Niño comes in, all that corrupt government officials and their cohorts in and out of the bureaucracy could think of is fat commissions and big kickbacks from El Niño infrastructure projects," he added.

Mariano also said that while El Niño deprives farmlands of irrigation, it springs financial opportunities for those who seek bigger shares of the state budget. This, according to the activist peasant leader, has aggravated the cycle of corruption particularly in agencies dealing with El Niño.

The sum of all peasants' fears

With the worst incidence recorded in 1997-1998, El Niño has been triggering the same intensity of destruction after that. During that period, billions of farm and fishery crops were destroyed. In fisheries, for instance, the long dry spell suffered losses around P7.24 billion as El Niño led the drying up of ponds and other water resources for fish and aquatic production.

"What happened between 1997 and 1998 was truly devastating," Mariano recalled. "It was more than a wake up call for the government, but until now all the DA has to say is to repair and rehabilitate communal irrigation systems."

Echoing the same concern, the militant fisherfolk group Pamalakaya said that while El Niño has been drying up agricultural farmlands and ponds of water, few interested groups and state officials are likewise draining Filipino taxpayers of their hard-earned money by hyping about El Niño mitigating projects in addressing the long dry season.

"It is hard and painful to accept such stupid brand of reasoning," says Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap. "Imagine, every year billions of pesos since 1998 have been poured to combat El Niño through repairs of major irrigation systems, yet all Secretary Montemayor can say is that they need P1 billion this year for the repair of same irrigation systems. This is horrible."

To illustrate his point, Hicap said that of the proposed P1 billion allocation for El Niño projects, P700 million will go to repair and rehabilitation of irrigation systems, while P300 million will be spent on shallow tube wells, small impounding system units, cloud seeding operations and purchase of drought-resistant seeds.

"The sum of all our fears is that we can really never expect the government to cushion the impact of El Niño," Hicap added. "The government cannot fight the dry spell by looking at it as an opportunity to raise money and keep corrupt practices at the center of its priority."

8-point emergency food production plan

Meanwhile, Montemayor said since last year the government has built and rehabilitated irrigation projects covering 22,000 hectares. In 2000, the department's irrigation project in preparation for El Niño covered not less than 10,000 hectares of water-irrigated farmlands.

But KMP said the repair of irrigation systems is not enough to cushion the impact of El Niño. To hit the nail on its head, the militant peasant group said the DA should adopt a comprehensive 8-point emergency food production plan to be carried out in times of imminent drought.

Specifically, KMP said, the government should:

• stop the rampant conversion of agricultural lands devoted to or suitable for food production to other uses, including an immediate halt on all coconut and other illegal and commercial logging activities - encourage production of food crops instead export crops;

• practice craft diversification instead of monocropping practices;

• immediate re-allocation of funds for food production subsidy from debt servicing and military budget;

• building, repair and rehabilitation of medium and small irrigation facilities, shallow tube well irrigation facilities and other water impounding structures;

• practice sustainable agriculture procedures and farm practices to avoid soil and environmental destruction;

• break up monopoly over seeds and other farm inputs, free and immediate distribution of planting materials of crops resistant to drought;

• allocate enough necessary funds for price support subsidies

"We cannot solve or even minimize the impact of the long dry spell unless the Macapagal-Arroyo administration drops its Jurassic views on El Niño as plain catastrophe that can be addressed through band-aid economics and public display of some charitable moments,” the KMP said. Bulatlat.com

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