By Sen. Grace Poe
On top of the killer heat, the water scarcity being experienced by a number of provinces is a cause for alarm.
Several cities and municipalities have taken matters into their own hands by declaring a state of calamity so they can tap local funds to buy water for their parched constituents.
Others would need bigger resources to provide irrigation for farm lands and water for livestock to further avert agricultural losses.
Our people in the provinces thirst for help.
The initiatives of the local government units should turn up the heat on concerned national government agencies so they can act with urgency. As the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) predicts, El Niño is here to stay until May.
It is not too late to bring in solutions to the provinces to mitigate the impact of this weather phenomenon.