?When the well dries up, even the fool saves water.? This axiom came to mind as forecasts of El Niño searing the country sent everyone scrambling. Well, almost everybody.

Among the country?s 126 cities, the most vulnerable to dry spells is Cebu. How will El Niño affect a city crammed with migrants, collapsing aquifers, salt contaminated wells and biologically dead rivers? City Hall couldn?t be bothered.

There?s an ?above 50-percent chance? that moderate El Niño conditions will set in, the weather bureau Pagasa cautioned. Warmer-than-usual readings 200 meters below ocean surface have been noted, the US Climate Prediction Center reports.

El Niño is argot for the warming or cooling of surface waters in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. It can come in tandem with La Niña. Droughts are trailed by tropical cyclones.

El Niño has an ?uncanny way of taking place during or after a financial crisis,? Union Bank of Switzerland observes. After the 1997 Asian crisis, El Niño cut Philippine output to 1.2 percent from the 5.6 percent expansion forecast.

El Niño today comes amid the lingering effects of the global recession and swine flu. It could affect wheat harvests in Australia and palm oil output in Malaysia and Indonesia. It would crimp rice harvests here, Reuters reports.

Rice shortages and pila in a tense election year are political dynamite. If El Niño straddles the dry cropping season, it would blight nearly 544,000 hectares planted to rice, Agriculture Undersecretary Bernardo Fondevilla estimates. ?If we have to import rice, we will,? he said.

The National Economic and Development Authority reactivated its El Niño Task Force to craft mitigation plans. The National Irrigation Authority will shut down irrigation taps in Camarines and Sorsogon. Negros Occidental has reported the onset of El Niño-like spells. Bread baskets, like Mindanao, still have to be heard from.

Metro Manila now tracks the slump in water levels of Angat and other reservoirs. Flyers on water conservation have been published. They signal other cities to what they must do, but soon.

?We can draw lessons from the past,? US President Lyndon Johnson once mused. ?But we cannot live in it.?

The 1997-1998 El Niño, for example, compelled ?excessive draw downs,? recalls Leonardo Liongson of UP?s National Hydraulic Center. That triggered irrigation water cuts for over 10 months. El Niño?s reappearance in 2001-2003 forced ?low or zero? allocations over brief periods for irrigation.

Unlike Burma or Malaysia, we are not water rich. In 2000, we had only 6,332 cubic meters of total actual renewable water resources per capita, the Asian Development Bank notes. That dipped to 5,880 cubic meters five years later. And it is still falling.

Water remains clear upstream. But it morphs into a murky lethal cocktail as it meanders through littered rivers and chemical-tainted creeks. More than half (58 percent) of groundwater today is contaminated. Of 457 water bodies classified by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, only half (51 percent) meet 1996 water standards.

Two-thirds of rivers no longer provide potable water. ?Pag walang tubig na linaw, iinumin kahit labo,? the Tagalog proverb says. It there is no clear water, one will drink even the turbid.

Children are especially vulnerable to water-borne diseases. Annual infant deaths from diarrhea alone exceed the toll of Mindanao armed clashes, Viewpoint commented in ?Poisoned wells.? (Inquirer, 1/8/08) This ecological decay spawns a Jekyll-and-Hyde paradox: from life giver water turns into a killer.

?Indeed, it is a grave moral shortcoming if people cannot drink water without courting disease or death,? Worldwatch Institute?s Sandra Postel stresses.

Scampering to cushion El Niño?s blows is essential. But who among those who proclaim themselves fit to lead this troubled nation have looked beyond periodic crises? Who has really grappled with long-term water security?

Few people budged when the Japan International Cooperation Agency warned back in 1998 that unless decisive reforms were adopted, water resources would be at a critical stage by 2025. Main cities and eight of 19 major river basins will be parched or polluted.

Many developing countries risk mortgaging their water security in a decade or two if business-as-usual mindsets persist, cautioned ADB vice president Ursula Schafer-Preuss.

Cebu City exemplifies this ?tomorrow-will-be-another-today mentality.? The burg is 99 percent dependent on water pumped from collapsing aquifers. The city siphons twice what is recharged. Water tables have slumped. Salt water has seeped into aquifers by Cebu foothills over eight kilometers inland. This is irreversible damage.

The Metro Cebu Water District serves only 55 percent of residents whose number quadrupled since 1940. The number of homes with water taps is a fraction more than when Mayor Tomas Osmeña took over City Hall, three terms back. He denies a water crisis even as he steps down from City Hall. Thus, he blocked proposals to pipe surface water from outside the city. That?s the only alternative to terminal collapse of aquifers.

In so doing Osmeña also scrubbed long-term water supply for his pet project, the 297-hectare South Reclamation project. No investor of sound mind will build in an area that drills into already collapsing aquifers for water.

In Shakespeare?s inimitable phrase, Osmeña ?hoisted himself with his own petard.? He did it with superb efficiency. But a sneer, alas, is not a substitute for water policy.

(E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com)