Domoguen: Watching the seasons anomalies and our anomalous responses

THE SEASONS define our life and history as a people. There are two major seasons in the Philippines, the wet and dry. These days, we have come to associate the wet months as the season of floods, erosion, and destruction. The sunny months of fun and adventure beginning in cold December until May are fast becoming a season of widespread drought, thirst and a foulness of body and evaporating moisture. The two seasons now paints for us what a poet in another time and place uttered in that phrase, "an endless aching year."

Watching the seasons in these latter days of my life impressed me with how widespread destruction in their wake is anomalous. That notion actually came much earlier, being voiced in those early days when the El Nino weather first came into our consciousness. I figured then El Nino and other climactic occurrences that do not fall with the normal schemes of the seasons and flow of our lives as we have known and comfortably adapted to them, were anomalous.

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Getting into a discourse on what constitutes an anomaly in the weather and how we survive or adapt to it, is beyond me. That requires a focused and disciplined study. I will stick to my impressions while experts deliberate on how seasons and the weather change the conduct of earthly life. Their opinions may come soon to benefit the next generation. That is if the weather and the seasons have not also changed. If this notion proves to be true, it points out that our lives may have fallen into another weather-related anomaly, now caught in a cycle of anomalies.

Going back to my impressions on the seasons, I will limit my discourse to the recent, starting late in the 80's when we were called to a session on the occurrence of El Nino. The occasion was part of the government's efforts to plan and marshal its resources to mitigate the effects of this developing nature-inflicted scourge on the nation's populace and industries.
The seasons have come and gone along with the occurrences of El Nino in our shores at varying levels. We have some successes at mitigating this "anomalous" weather episode invasion of our shores. But as we have always done, it as a nation we have taken our "kita ko, pati ko," skepticism even in dealing with the weather. Pagasa's forecasts may have help entrench us deeper into this anomalous attitude in confronting the multiplying problems that the changing climate and seasons bring. In my own recollections, we have taken the warnings on El Nino, crafted intervention measures and simultaneously carried out some action to alleviate problems at the height of their occurrence. There were also those times when El Nino made fun of us, really looking foolish with our message urging the people to prepare for it. A week or two after the advisories were out, the sting of urgency associated with it soon get lost as the rains came and kept on falling in sequence here and there.

It happened again last year. The local weather bureau predicted the occurrence of El Nino in the early part of this year sometime in October last year. For its part, the Department of Agriculture (DA), immediately convened its program directors and regional coordinators to realign their activities and budgets to mitigate its potential consequences. The programs were set but were in limbo as the rains kept failing in November until late December. Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng conspiring with our "kita ko, pati ko" attitude set aside any thought on El Nino onslaught early this year. The farmers planted their crops as usual while government was kept busy addressing the widespread destruction that the two previous typhoons wrought on agriculture, livelihoods and infrastructure. When the El Nino weather made its presence felt in late January, the damages on crops and livestock at their various stages all over the country were very devastating. The phenomenon lasted until June. In the Cordillera it brought about damages on crops, livestock and forestry with their considerable cost in millions of pesos.

Talks about lessons learned now abound in our dealing with climate change in our seasons. They come with promises of better responses and handling. Many remain pessimistic. We give special attention to instant creation of agencies and programs at the height of these occurrences. The Commission on Climate Change just came into being immediately after the onslaught of last year's super typhoons. Year's before this, a bill in Congress seeking the creation of a Dryland Institute for the Philippines was filed. It was rationalized with a view to addressing the effects of a changing climate in the conduct of the country's agriculture. In the Philippines, the greater part of our vast agricultural lands are considered rain fed and dry while many of our irrigated prime lands are practically converted to housing and industrial uses.

I need not call your attention, however, to instant responses or sidestepped earlier initiatives. Current changes in the weather, to my view, also highlight how we progressed in carrying out agricultural development for our farming folks. This July, the DA sent a letter to its LGU counterpart warning them to undertake precautionary measures against the outbreak of an emerging disease called Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) in swine. The deadly disease now affects most municipalities in Benguet. In just a few days, it spread to Ifugao and Mountain Province catching LGU operatives unaware. It could have not happened this way. Vigilance in the monitoring of seasonal disease could have helped identify its presence in a certain place and effected quarantine measures. As it happened in Mountain Province, the frontline operatives who are expected to monitor the occurrence of pests and diseases in their places of assignment were asked to validate and verify the occurrence of this disease by phone last Friday. The request was in response to the request of local farmers for help. In one barangay in Bontoc, after the local folks reported to us that many pigs have died or were butchered before these were affected or died in their sick state. The disease may have already spread beyond help and is spreading with dire consequences. In situations like this, the farmers will be faulted for their failure in not reporting the problem to the officials concerned not on the failure of the system to monitor or recognize the occurrence or emergence of a pest or disease in the localities during the seasons, months and days of the year. Truly it may not really be anybody's fault and it is too bad I write about this. Still, will we remain indifferent to the flight of our people in the midst of catastrophic changes in the weather and climates of our seasons.