President Marcos is pushing for area-specific ways of addressing the problems created by the El Niño phenomenon especially in hardest-hit provinces where a state of calamity has been declared.

President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos jr. presides over a sectoral meeting in Malacañang. (Photo from the Presidential Communications Office)

The Chief Executive explained that the government is looking at the problems “by area” to come up with solutions to help the farmers and those impacted by the high temperatures.
 

“Iba-iba ‘yung problema sa bawat lugar, eh. Hindi naman pwede shotgun lang parang one size fits all (There are different problems in each area. It cannot be a shotgun where one size fits all),” he told reporters in Bacolod City, where he led the opening of the Cebu-Negros-Panay 230-kV Backbone Project.
 

“So we look at each area and see what it is that they need. So that's the way we are handling the local states of calamity that the local governments have declared,” he added.
 

Earlier, Task Force El Niño spokesperson Joey Villarama said that 16 towns have already declared a state of calamity due to El Niño.
 

While Marcos furthered that all provinces will be affected by El Niño, he admitted that some provinces would be in a more difficult state compared to others.
 

The President also gave a rundown of what the government has been doing to counter its effects, adding that the government is looking particularly at areas that cannot be reached by water and irrigation.
 

“As a matter of fact, kasi naglagay nga tayo ng mga dam, patuloy na inaayos ang ating irigasyon (we put up dam, we are fixing the irrigation), we should and we are trying to find new techniques of planting,” he said.
 

“We are harvesting more palay now than we are last year, that's despite the El Niño, so it's taking effect,” he added.
 

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), the damage and losses incurred by the agriculture sector due to the El Niño phenomenon have reached P2.63 billion.
 

This translates to 53,879 hectares of farmland that that have been affected, equivalent to 116,792 metric tons of production volume.