Rains drenched parts of the country, including Metro Manila, Friday after almost two months of dry spell brought about by the El Nino weather phenomenon. The rains came a day after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a state of calamity in Mindanao due to the extended dry spell which has triggered a power crisis in the Philippines' second largest island. Metro Manila and other parts of the country have also been hard hit by the hot weather condition that has caused power firms to shut out electricity in the capital and six neighboring provinces since Friday morning. For that, Friday's rains were widely welcomed by residents as they provided temporary relief from the searing summer heat. The last rainfall in Metro Manila was recorded on Jan. 22. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said the rains were brought by a cold front caused by easterly winds coming from the Pacific Ocean. “Luzon will experience mostly cloudy skies with light rains while the eastern section of Mindanao will have mostly cloudy skies with scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms. The rest of the country will be partly cloudy to at times cloudy with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms,” Pagasa said in its Friday bulletin. Weather experts said the rains do not mean an early end to summer, saying these are isolated incidents and that dry weather will continue to prevail and even worsen in the days to come. “The rain today does not mean that the El Nino is over, because we are still and will still experience below normal rainfall,” said Rusy Abastillas of the Climate Monitoring and Prediction Section of Pagasa. Also Friday, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said it has scheduled rotating brownouts in Metro Manila and the nearby provinces of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Quezon, and Rizal. Meralco said the forced power outages are “due to the insufficient generation power capacity of the power generation suppliers.” The brownouts are going to be experienced in Batangas between 12 noon and 2 P.M.; in Quezon province between 1 P.M. to 4 P.M.; and in Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal between 12 noon and 4 P.M. In Bulacan and Metro Manila, the brownouts will occur between 12 noon and 7 P.M. Earlier, Arroyo approved the recommendation of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) to place Mindanao under a state of calamity. Mindanao Development Authority chairman Jesus Dureza said government officials will meet with Mindanao business leaders and energy producers from the private sector to address the severe power shortage on the island. Dureza said El Nino has disabled the region's hydro-electric power plants, causing five- to eight-hour blackouts. Highly dependent on hydro power, Mindanao has been experiencing power shortfalls and rotating blackouts since 2009 when the ongoing dry spell caused water levels in resevoirs to go below normal levels.
