OVER the past few months, we have been on the lookout for indications that the government and the country as a whole is aware of and making proper preparations to withstand the El Niño climate phenomenon, as it has been forecast for nearly a year to be one of the strongest since regular meteorological record-keeping began in the early part of the last century. The reason for our grave concern, and our inclination to comment on it frequently, is that the increasing volume of available data indicates that El Niño this year will result in the most comprehensive and longest-lasting national-scale calamity since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Unfortunately, although there have been a few welcome exceptions, almost every indicator of government preparedness shows that we are not ready.
A news item from earlier this week illustrated the flawed perspective of the government in addressing the crisis. In a media briefing on Monday, Oct. 12, Energy Undersecretary Mario Marisigan summarized steps the Department of Energy (DOE) is taking to address the “anticipated super El Niño next year.” These steps include forming a task force with other agencies to help to address energy resilience; reviewing stopgap measures such as deploying power barges and other generator sets; making use of the interruptible load program and promoting energy conservation; and pressing for the completion of generation projects and battery energy storage systems that are already in development. The DOE expects that the El Niño-induced heat wave will reduce hydroelectric output, mostly from Mindanao, by as much as 60 percent, and solar power output by up to 20 percent, putting pressure on electricity supply all across the country, but particularly in the Visayas — where supply has already been severely strained for most of this year — and in Mindanao.
These are sensible measures; none of them is necessarily a misstep. But there are two serious problems with the DOE’s approach. First, all of these measures are at least three or four months too late; they should have been in place and operational at the beginning of El Niño, as early as April or May. Second, the solutions are being proposed in the mistaken context of a relatively short-lived calamity; the assumption is that El Niño will peak sometime next month or in December, which will be followed by perhaps a couple of months of difficult conditions, but then things will return to normal.
We are singling out the DOE here merely as an example, not because it is uniquely unprepared; the entire government is approaching the El Niño calamity with the same flawed perspectives of “something that hasn’t happened yet” and “something that will be a short-term challenge.” It is frustrating, because the government and indeed the entire population knows the more effective way to respond to an oncoming disaster. Consider the reaction to an approaching typhoon; people in high-risk areas are evacuated, relief goods and emergency response assets are pre-positioned in areas where they are likely to be needed most, and people are urged to take such precautions as necessary to endure power outages or difficulty in moving around after the storm passes.
Nobody waits until the full force of the storm’s violent center has already arrived to do these things. And yet, that is exactly what the government is doing with respect to El Niño.
The shorter-term effects of El Niño are one thing, but the longer-term impacts are quite another, and from our point of view, the government does not seem to be aware of those implications, let alone has contemplated a response to them.
Some clues as to what can be expected can be found within the Asian Development Bank’s September update to its Asian Development Outlook (ADO) for 2026, released last month. Historically, a typical El Niño reduces economic output across the board for the entire year following its onset, and sometimes longer; as one example given in the ADO, the El Niño of 1997–1998 is estimated to have cost the global economy $5.7 trillion in lost output. A typical El Niño also adds, on average, 1 percentage point to inflation in the year following its onset, and this is usually even higher in countries — such as the Philippines — where food makes up a third or more of the consumer price index (CPI) “basket.” Food and beverage make up between 38 and 39 percent of our CPI.
The government may have missed the mark in preparing properly for the onset of El Niño, but it still has time to develop and implement effective measures to ease the effects of its aftermath. It should now be prioritizing that effort.
