In the fields of central Luzon, farmers who planted their rice in June are watching the sky with worry.
Out over the Pacific, a familiar spectre is gathering strength – and with it, the threat of empty granaries and hungry households.
The Philippines has a plan for this year’s “super” El Nino, on paper at least. But to the Filipinos out actually working the paddies, that plan is barely perceptible.
“We don’t see anything visible, it’s all talk,” said Raul Montemayor, national manager of the Federation of Free Farmers, an NGO representing 250,000 of the country’s 10 million rural workers and agricultural labourers.
The warning signs have been building for months. Pagasa, the Philippine weather bureau, confirmed in a June 24 update that El Nino conditions were already present in the tropical Pacific, forecasting that they would strengthen by August through October, then intensify further later in the year.
Speaking at Pagasa’s 197th Climate Outlook Forum, held online that same day, Dr Ana Liza Solis, chief of the bureau’s climate monitoring and prediction section, put the odds of El Nino intensifying from October at 62 per cent.
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