Punishing rains next

The insufferable summer heat is stoking fears of rain, lots and lots of rain.

Bizarre though such fears are, they are worth considering. Deep in our dried-up skins, we sense that blinding extreme heat waves inevitably bring days and nights of unending rain.

Still, in these heated days, we urbanites don’t think too much of rain, preoccupied as we are with our craving for any relief from the heat that even short-lived showers cheer us, despite the irony of the same showers pushing heat indices a notch higher.

Indeed, broiling heat indexes, dangerously averaging 45 degrees Celsius in recent days, are undoubtedly existential threats.

And the Weather Bureau predicts heat indices will rise even higher. Hopefully, the indexes won’t reach the predicted 52 degrees Celsius by May, the hottest month.

Parched days, however, aren’t just threats to the body or health risks. The extreme heat has reached our dinner tables.

In the larger context, the extreme heat is wreaking havoc on farmlands and is costing farmers billions.

And, to the chagrin of the farmers who somehow managed the worst effects of the El Niño drought, they’re finding the extreme heat has had strange effects on their produce.

Scores of tomato farmers, for example, are reporting a smaller crop this year, leading one farmer to quip that he’s been growing “cherry” tomatoes all along.

Poultry farmers, too, are reporting that chickens are laying smaller and more fragile eggs, with previously small-size eggs now being sold as medium-size eggs.

So far, there are no reports of how livestock or fish are faring under the El Niño heat. However, one study grimly says that 52 degrees Celsius constitutes a death sentence for animals.

Still and all, the hellish nightmare isn’t over once the extreme heat loses its sting. Another existential watery threat looms large on the horizon — the La Niña rains.

No one, not even the Weather Bureau or jittery agriculture officials, can predict when La Niña will go on a rampage amid our unpredictable climate change-ravaged weather playground.

But, as surely as the sun rises, La Niña will traipse down our way, begging the question: Are we, collectively and individually, ready for her?

In answering that question, the Marcos government creditably took the significant policy step of admonishing that we can’t really count on the Filipino’s vaunted “resiliency” in muddling through present or forthcoming natural disasters.

Hopefully, it isn’t merely rhetorical.

If it isn’t rhetorical, such a policy, therefore, means the Marcos government (as well as all local governments for that matter) should henceforth be judged by how ready they are for a La Niña event.

However, there’s no shortage of pessimism about what the government is doing about these daunting challenges.

Take the matter of permanent evacuation centers. In a research, a news outfit found that safe evacuation centers for flood victims hardly exist all over the country, even in Metro Manila. Which now essentially means that public schools will still end up as evacuation centers.

Yet, everyone has already seen the need for permanent evacuation centers. A bill requiring all local governments to build sturdy evacuation centers is still pending in Congress, not even certified as an urgent bill.

Turning to schools, the Education department really must thoroughly reexamine its policies on school suspensions.

The Education department must firmly decide its suspension policies for unending rains and publicize them widely before the school year starts.

Meanwhile, the Marcos government must follow through on its recent order for all public works to be conducted round the clock during summer, especially dredging activities.

The Public Works department and its hired contractors are noticeably remiss in following the ordered 24-hour schedule on all public works.

At any rate, all these are mere dots on what the government still needs to do.

We ordinary citizens, meanwhile, can’t sit idly by, too. We, for instance, have the duty to badger our respective barangay officials to clear all clogged drainage and waterways by next month.