[In This Economy] How Marcos sat on El Niño

The Marcos federal government reported on March 5 that there was an uptick of inflation, after 4 months of decrease.

In February, inflation climbed up once again to 3.4%and it’s since of food rates, especially rice.

Rice pumped up by nearly 24% from in 2015. That’s the greatest rice inflation in 15 years according to federal government statisticians.

Figure 1 listed below records the singularly big function of rice amongst all other food classifications. Meat and fish inflation are both decreasing. Veggies are really ending up being less expensive. It’s just rice that’s triggering difficulty nowadays.

Figure 1.

Rather certainly, the extreme drought triggered by El Niño is driving down rice production. Reports show that farmers all over the nation are adjusting by planting alternative crops, moving the cropping calendar, and setting up water pumps.

Lower production tends to stir costs. Figure 2 reveals that well-milled rice is now balancing at P55.93 per kilo, while unique rice is at P64.4 per kilo. Much more troubling is the even steeper increase of farmgate costs of palay.

Using the general rule that retail rice costs have to do with two times the farmgate rates of palay, we’re in for even greater market prices in coming months.

Figure 2.

This is substantial because rice inhabits a big part of Filipinos’ food spending plan. This makes rice a political product in the Philippines.

How did Marcos prepare?

Obviously there are likewise worldwide elements behind the increasing rice rates.

Information from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reveals that general rice rates have actually increased worldwide. Their most current typical rice cost index is 13% up from January 2023, and is likewise at its greatest considering that August 2008 when another rice rate shock struck the world.

We need to likewise analyze what the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has actually done to prepare for El Niño. Let’s take a look at the timeline.

As early as March 2023, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) currently alerted that “El Niño will likely establish in Jul-Aug-Sept (JAS) 2023 season and might continue up until 2024.”

In April 2023, Marcos, as concurrent farming secretary, currently allegedly tasked companies to get ready for El Niño.

In May 2023, Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. reported to the President that a job force, rather strangely led by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), has actually been formed to “execute steps to reduce the effect of El Niño on the nation’s economy, natural deposits, environment, environment modification, catastrophe reaction, and peace and order.”

This effort kind of stalled.

Fast-forward to December 2023, Marcos declared that he currently developed under his workplace a “Task Force El Niño.” Later on that month, nevertheless, the brand-new defense secretary, Gilbert Teodoro, confessed that Marcos has yet to sign an executive order formalizing the job force.

Unfortunately, it was just on January 19, 2024 that Marcos lastly signed Executive Order 53 “Reactivating and Reconstituting the Task Force El Niño.” This is practically a year given that PAGASA initially raised its El Niño alert.

Marcos might have signed an executive order formalizing the El Niño job force as early as March or April 2023. No. He rested on it.

It’s not as if he needed to transform the wheel. The executive order he signed actually simply “reactivated” the old El Niño job force that was established by previous president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo back in 2001.

That Arroyo El Niño job force was smartly led by the farming secretary. Rather strangely, the Marcos job force is to be led by the defense secretary. Why? Are they preparing to bring El Niño to war and shoot it down? This type of advises me of the method previous president Duterte militarized the action to COVID-19.

What is this belated Marcos job force charged to do?

It will be modifying and upgrading the Strategic El Niño National Action Plan, which “will serve as the extensive catastrophe readiness and rehab strategy for the El Niño phenomenon.”

Second, it should carry out services and programs for water security, food security, energy security, health, and security.

Third, it needs to collaborate with all companies worried about the conclusion of continuous water facilities jobs no behind end-April 2024.

4th, it should carry out a “huge info project” about El Niño.

Fifth, it should send a month-to-month report to the President about the execution of El Niño programs and policies.

Sixth, it should develop an “El Niño Online Platform” functioning as a “central repository for a wide variety of information, research study, and details worrying El Niño, such as interactive maps and visualizations, along with educated, data-driven strategies and programs connected to El Niño.”

How in the world can they do all that when El Niño is currently on our doorsteps? Such postponed preparation is not unlike protecting the roofing or leaving your household simply when a Yolanda-type tropical cyclone has actually currently shown up.

Poor preparation begets casualties. And I’m scared the Marcos administration’s procrastination will make this El Niño season an especially ravaging one.

Currently, El Niño is approximated to have actually cost the Philippines’ farming sector more than P1 billionAnticipate that number to grow in earnest in the coming months.– Rappler.com

JC Punongbayan, PhD is an assistant teacher at the UP School of Economics and the author of Incorrect Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk ThemJC’s views are independent of his associations. Follow him on Twitter (@jcpunongbayanand Usapang Econ Podcast