Govt bares efforts to ease impact of El Nino

The Manila Times

Govt bares efforts to ease impact of El Nino  Malacañang Press Briefer Daphne Paez, Agriculture Undersecretary Roger Navarro and Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Joey Villarama speak to the media on the government's efforts to mitigate the impacts of El Niño.  Video by Catherine Valente  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe  Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Stitcher: https://tmt.ph/stitcher Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes  #tmtnews  #government

Transcript

00:00 President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. directed the Department of Agriculture to look for ways to

00:06 manage the stability of supply and prices of basic commodities in view of the effects of the El Nino

00:14 phenomenon, which is expected to persist until May 2024. Meanwhile, the DA assured the public

00:21 that the supply of rice, corn, pork, and sugar, among other daily necessities, remains sufficient.

00:29 Joining us this afternoon are Agriculture Under Secretary Roger Navarro and PCO Assistant

00:34 Secretary Joey Villarrama, who is a spokesperson for Task Force El Nino. Good afternoon.

00:38 Go ahead, sir.

00:40 Yeah, good afternoon. Good afternoon to everybody. Secretary Kiko Laro just

00:45 briefed the President that all our crops commodities, especially for rice and corn,

00:53 pork and chicken, were a bit stable and there will be no problem in these coming months. So

01:00 we don't need to worry. Just relax, sit back, and watch the show.

01:06 Okay. Can we have an update on the status of El Nino from Assistant Secretary Joey?

01:19 Yesterday, the Task Force El Nino had its second meeting at the Office of Civil Defense,

01:26 and Pag-asa in its advisory or bulletin number eight said that the effects of El Nino are

01:36 expected—strong El Nino are expected to highly impact parts of the country this month of February.

01:48 But as Ms. Daphne mentioned, El Nino is expected to persist until May 2024. So all the principal

01:57 agencies involved in the Task Force, namely Department of National Defense, Department of

02:03 Agriculture, Environment, Science and Technology, DILG, and even NEDA, and Department of Energy,

02:11 have closely coordinated to implement mitigating measures to stave off the effects of El Nino.

02:20 So we are not far, and they're supplying us with rice. So in other words, the challenge really is

02:29 more stabilizing supply rather than price. It's better to have rice at 56 rather than no rice at

02:40 42. So we need to also rationalize our thinking that we cannot bring down the price because the

02:49 input price, especially for fertilizers and seeds in the international market, is also going up to

02:57 the ceiling unless we are going to buy one peso per bag of urea, and then we can sell 10 peso per

03:06 kilo of rice.

03:11 [MUSIC]

Transcript

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