VOL. 8 ISSUE 219 • SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2016
P 15.00 • 16 PAGES
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YOUNG WORKER. A barefoot young boy peddles pieces of flannel cloth along Jacinto Extension yesterday in order to help his family earn a living. Child labor is one of the country’s most urgent problems, stemming from a wide range of social factors. Lean Daval Jr.
DROUGHT TILL JUNE Current El Niño is one of the strongest, says PAGASA By CHENEEN R. CAPON
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crc@edgedavao.net
HE current El Niño phenomenon being experienced in the country is “one of the strongest” to hit the Philippines and is expected to last until June this year, the government weather bureau said. “The long drought season which had its peak during the last quarter of 2015 was considered one of the three strongest since 1900,” PAGA-
SA Davao City chief meteorological officer Gerry Pedrico said during the Kapihan sa PIA held at Abreeza Ayala Mall yesterday. Pedrico said the sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) has already reached 2.7 degrees Celsius, more than five times the .5 degree Celsius threshold value. He said only two previous El Niño occurrences were
stronger than the current one: in 1982 to 1983 and in 1997 to 1998 in which the respective SSTAs were also more than five times higher than the threshold. Pederico said the current El Niño episode will last about five more months, during which some areas in Mindanao will be hit badly by drought or dry spell. According to PAGA-
SA, a drought is defined as three consecutive months of way-below normal rainfall condition with greater than 60 percent reduction from average rainfall. A dry spell is defined as three consecutive months of below-normal rainfall condition with 21 to 60 percent reduction from average rainfall. The provinces in Mind-
FDROUGHT, 9
“The long drought season which had its peak during the last quarter of 2015 was considered one of the three strongest since 1900” PAGASA Davao City chief Gerry Pedrico
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