Politics and El Niño: The heat rises

Dionisio Seguerra, a farmer in the mountains of Mantalongon, Dalaguete shows to Cebu Daily News his vegetables which shrunk at the onset of last year’s El Niño phenomenon. The prolonged dry spell led the Cebu Provincial Capitol to declare a province-wide state of calamity as the intense heat dried up water sources and caused a decline in farm products. Deaths caused by heatstroke were also reported along with conflicts over access to water and stolen livestock. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

(PART 2)

Following months of heated political bickering, One Cebu gubernatorial candidate Winston Garcia conceded defeat to re-elected governor, Hilario Davide III a day after the May 9 elections.

Results later showed that Davide garnered 616,381 votes over Garcia’s 593,725.

Vice Governor Agnes Magpale was proclaimed winner two days after the poll after maintaining a consistent lead over Garcia’s running mate, vice gubernatorial aspirant Nerissa Soon-Ruiz.

Magpale garnered roughly 600,000 votes over Soon-Ruiz’s 400,000 votes.

Meanwhile, the proclamation of eight provincial board members who secured confident leads over their closest rivals was also held earlier.

Board members Yoly Daan and Raul Bacaltos won the first district representation, Tata Corominas and Alex Binghay for the third district, Sun Shimura and Horacio Franco for the fourth district, and Miguel Magpale and Jude Sybico for the fifth district.

Subsequently proclaimed were the representatives for the second district, Edsel Galeos and Jose Mari Salvador, while Jerome Librando and Christopher Baricuatro were declared winners for the newly created seventh district of Cebu.

Also elected in the new provincial board lineup were Glenn Bercede and Thadeo “Jonkie” Ouano for the sixth district.

Jonkie substituted for his father, Thadeo, after the latter died of cancer three months shy of the elections.

In a rather unfortunate streak, the sixth district again lost one of its former representatives months later on November 14, when Arleigh Sitoy succumbed to cardiac arrest. He was 58 and was supposed to undergo a kidney transplant.

Sitoy served as town mayor of Cordova for three terms from 1998 to 2007. He then served as Provincial Board member for two terms before running again for mayor in Cordova in the last elections. He lost to his half sister, Mary Therese Sitoy-Cho.

Sitoy’s father, Adelino Sitoy, former Cordova town mayor and now the presidential adviser on legislative affairs and head of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO), said that his son was in a coma a day before suffering a heart attack.

“Before siya na coma ana siya di siya ganahan pa kuhaon sa Ginoo kay he is helping me sa akong trabaho sa Malacañang (before his coma, he said that he did not want God to take him yet because he is helping me with my work in Malacañang),” the older Sitoy said of his son.

Celestino Martinez III and Earl Oyas, both serve as ex-officio members of the board as provincial heads of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) and League of Councilors, respectively.

A dried up rice field in Sitio Libo, Barangay Mohon in Talisay City. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

El Niño: The Heat Rises

As the build up to the May 9 elections intensified, the country’s climate also heated up.

Starting February, the whole of Cebu was plagued with bouts of unusually hot weather, which led to the declaration of a state of calamity in April due to the El Niño phenomenon.

The toll on agriculture wrought by the months of dry spell rose by mid-April from P186 million to P196.7 million within a week, according to a report released by the Cebu Province Rapid Assessment Team (CPRAT).

With elections looming just a month away, the Provincial Capitol’s efforts to respond to constituents affected by the dry spell were hampered due to a Commission on Elections (Comelec) ban on the distribution of relief assistance.

According to Baltazar Tribunalo Jr., head of the Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO), the election ban slowed down their relief efforts in the midst of the calamity experienced all throughout the province.

As the temperature rose, so did the price of commodities as farmers lamented how their farmlands started to crack, with their crops withering while the growth of other produce were stunted due to the dry spell.

The scorching heat, the dying crops, and the inevitable decline in supply eventually led the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to impose a price freeze on basic necessities in the provinces of Cebu and Bohol which were both declared under a state of calamity.

By May, the impact of the dry spell escalated to more than just Cebu’s water sources drying up and the decline in the province’s vegetable supply.

Deaths arising from health problems, individual conflicts over access to water sources, stolen livestock and missing disaster relief packs were reported by CPRAT.

The team also said that heatstroke may have caused the death of seven people from the first and fourth districts.

After several months and millions of pesos in damages, the unrelenting heat finally broke through and by the middle of 2016, Cebu began to experience much-needed rain.

Although it was reported that La Niña should be expected after the El Niño chapter, there was no official declaration from the state weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) as to its occurrence.

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