An El Niño team created by the government will meet on Monday to discuss how to mitigate problems that could arise from changes in the climate, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said Sunday.

“Since the President is worrying about the preparations for the possible negative effects of El Niño, the different government agencies will be having a meeting on Monday,” OCD Administrator Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno told dzBB.

El Niño is expected to enter in the last quarter of 2023 or early next year.

Ilocos, Bataan and Cavite are the areas that are expected to be extremely affected by the effects of El Niño.

Among the agencies attending the meeting are OCD, Department of National Defense (DND), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Health (DOH), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasaa), Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

Nepomuceno said they will be discussing short-term solutions, such as how to address the spread of dengue, and long term solutions, including building more flood control infrastructure.

Nepomuceno said the country is expected to face problems in terms of water supply.

“In the news, the water level of the dams are becoming lower and this will be made worse by El Niño. But the good news is, according to the Department of Energy, our power supply is enough. However, we keep experiencing blackouts during this time. We have to think of possible solutions to prevent the supply of power from running out,” he said.

He suggested building catch basins like those in Japan.

“Japan and the Philippines have similar problems when it comes to storms and earthquakes. But they have engineering solutions in place for that. For example, when it rains, and the storm from the Philippines intensifies when it moves to Japan or Taiwan, their engineering solution is to have an underground catch basin in Tokyo,” Nepomuceno said. Jaspearl Tan/DMS