All hands on deck vs. El Niño

That’s right, you did not misread the lips of National Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. when he said the national government would streamline its response to the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Teodoro, chair of the El Niño task force, noted President Marcos Jr. wants to focus on “systematic, holistic, and results-driven interventions.”

The 59-year-old defense chief said: “Effectively addressing the effects of El Niño across the country surely requires all hands on deck.”

The common phrase may well be a figure of speech that means everyone available needs to be involved in a super urgent task that needs immediate attention.

Coming from Teodoro, in the middle of the weather phenomenon, the idiom conveys the basic idea that all available people and resources are urgently needed to complete the task to stand up to the challenges of El Niño, the warming of the ocean surface or above-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

We should heed Teodoro’s call for cooperation and coordination “as we deal with the effects of and concerns on El Niño,” who pointed out “We do not need a new structure. What we need is to breathe fresh energy and a new lease on life on the existing networks and links that we have all access to.”

We endorse Teodoro’s suggestion that at the regional and local government levels, officials can “reignite old connections of collaboration.”

“We have done this in handling past disasters and calamities. The provincial DRRMCs (Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council) and city DRRMCs should restart reconnecting,” he said as he assured the President the task force and local DRRMCs are actively working to mitigate the impact of the dry spell.

This was after the DILG agreed with Teodoro’s position to align local government units as well as provincial and city-level DRRMCs with President Marcos Jr.’s whole-of-government approach to mitigate and manage the impact of El Niño.

Last month, President Marcos signed Executive Order 53 to streamline, reactivate, and reconstitute the old El Niño task forces under EO 16 (s. 2001) and Memorandum Order 38 (s. 2019) and designated Teodoro chairperson of the task force, while Secretary of Science and Technology Renato Solidum was designated as co-chairperson.

Teodoro Jr. has also ordered all military camp commanders to conserve water as the government ramps up its actions to mitigate and manage the impacts of El Niño, predicted to persist until May this year.

In line with President Marcos Jr.’s directive for government intervention, Teodoro said “commanders of all military camps across the country must take the lead in conserving water as we begin to experience the effects of El Niño.”

Teodoro also stressed “we should all support and practice daily the government’s water conservation policy as we experience the effects of El Niño.”

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