Warm weather to continue – Pagasa

Filipinos should continue to brace for warm weather in the next few days, as weather forecasters warned of the effects of the high heat index that reached dangerous levels last week.

Mario Mendoza of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said temperatures across the country in the next few days would be similar to the past week.

Mendoza said the ridge of high-pressure area and the easterlies, which bring warm air from the Pacific, would affect the weather.

Thunderstorms are expected to affect some parts of the country.

The heat index in Cabanatuan City on Friday hit 52.1 degrees Celsius by 2 p.m., the highest recorded that day.

In Metro Manila, the heat index reached 43.2 degrees Celsius as recorded at the Science Garden in Quezon City.

The heat index or the human discomfort index gives the apparent temperature or what humans perceive or feel as the temperature affecting their body, according to the state weather bureau.

“High air temperatures and high relative humidity will give high apparent temperatures or indices. Full exposure to sunshine can increase the heat index by nine degrees,” PAGASA said.

A heat index between 41 to 54 degrees is considered dangerous, which may result in heat cramps, exhaustion and stroke, it said.

The country’s highest heat index was recorded in Cabanatuan on April 12, at 53.2 degrees Celsius.

Donate rice stocks to farmers

President Aquino is being urged to order the National Food Authority (NFA) to distribute the remaining 2014 rice stocks to farmers affected by El Niño.

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said the NFA should no longer auction the 36,000 metric tons or 720,000 sacks of rice, saying Malacañang should order it distributed to farmers.

He said the farmers who figured in the Kidapawan violence needed only 15,000 bags of rice.

“The NFA said the stock it is planning to auction is just a small volume, but it would have meant a great deal if it were given to the starving farmers,” he said, adding it was possible that the NFA overimported rice in 2014.

“This could be the reason why they still have leftovers two years after the importation,” Colmenares said.

He said that during the Estrada and Arroyo administrations, the NFA had been accused of resorting to excess importation allegedly because there were fat commissions to be made.

The NFA has suspended the auction, as the move would have elicited outrage in the wake of the farmers’ demand that they be given rice.

NFA officials said they had set a floor price of P21 and P24 per kilo, depending on the quality of the rice.

This means the agency would recover from P756 million to P864 million.

NFA administrator Renan Dalisay said they could allocate the remaining supply to the farmers, but they could not give it directly to them.

“We are prohibited from doing that. We can give it to the DSWD or local government units, which can take care of the distribution,” he said, referring to the Department of Social Welfare and Development. –