What It Means
- DOST projects drought across all provinces by end of March 2027, a verbal estimate given at a Palace briefing.
- NWRB has already cut Angat Dam allocations, and irrigation takes a deeper cut than supply for Metro Manila.
- Rice importers entered the dry season with stock bought ahead of the shortfall, while farms on Angat irrigation entered it with less water.
- The cost of the drought is being assigned through allocation orders now and becomes visible in the first quarter of 2027.
- Power exposure is uneven, with Visayas already repriced and Luzon dependent on hydro reservoirs holding.
The El Niño drought impact is already being distributed, months before the drought itself arrives. On Monday, Science and Technology Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. told a Palace briefing that all provinces should expect drought by the end of March 2027. That is a verbal projection, and Solidum added that effects lag the Pacific condition because the southwest monsoon has masked them so far. The water allocation orders already issued carry more information than the headline. They show which users the government chose to cut first and by how much, and the pattern puts irrigated rice farms at the front of the line.
Angat Allocation Cuts Rank Water Users in Advance
NWRB announced on September 30 that it will cut the MWSS allocation from the regular 50 to 53 cubic meters per second to 44. In the same announcement, irrigation supply drops from the usual 30 to 35 cubic meters per second to 20 by October. Angat supplies 90 to 98 percent of Metro Manila’s water and irrigates nearly 31,000 hectares across 20 municipalities in Pampanga and Bulacan.
| User | Usual allocation (m³/s) | Announced allocation (m³/s) | Volume cut (m³/s) | Relative cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MWSS, Metro Manila | 50 to 53 | 44 | 6 to 9 | About 12 to 17 percent |
| Irrigation | 30 to 35 | 20 by October | 10 to 15 | About 33 to 43 percent |
Source: NWRB announcement of September 30, 2026. Relative cuts are HemosPH computations from the stated ranges.
The facts stop at the table. The interpretation is that irrigation absorbs the larger cut in both volume and proportion, so the El Niño drought impact is divided unevenly before it starts. NWRB describes the move as budgeting supply so Angat can recover toward 212 meters by year end, and that logic is defensible. It still ranks users. MWSS is told to draw on treatment facilities in Laguna Lake, Cavite, and Parañaque, while the announcement names no substitute source for farm water.
The El Niño Drought Impact Is Assigned Before the Drought Arrives
Solidum said the more severe effects land next year because of the lag, which is why the allocation orders say more about the El Niño drought impact than the forecast date does. PAGASA’s September 23 advisory expects a very strong El Niño to persist into the first half of 2027. Angat touched a record low near 150 meters in July and now sits near 208. NWRB’s executive director said the situation cannot be called comfortable.
The chain is mechanical, and it is our reading of the allocation, not an NWRB statement. A smaller irrigation share reaches farms served by Angat ahead of the dry-season crop. A smaller crop on those farms is where the El Niño drought impact reaches millers, traders, and rice-dependent processors who source from nearby provinces.
Importers Entered the Dry Season With Stock
The DA kept rice imports open for all of 2026. Imports reached 3.89 million metric tons as of September 17, up 19 percent from a year earlier, based on Bureau of Plant Industry data. The Agriculture Secretary has said imports could reach 5 million metric tons this year. The DA estimates El Niño could cut palay output by 700,000 metric tons, below the 1 million lost in the 2024 dry spell.
The reading is that stock was bought ahead of the shortfall and sits with importers, while the production loss sits with growers. That cushions retail rice prices. It does nothing for a farm whose water share was cut, and the El Niño drought impact on that farm is a volume problem.
A Palay Price Floor Does Not Help a Farm Without Water
The DA directed NFA to expand palay purchases to as much as 500,000 metric tons this year, buying wet palay at ₱21 per kilogram and dry palay at ₱25 to ₱27, as announced in August. That floor protects the price of whatever a farm harvests. It does not protect the volume a farm can plant. Growers on Angat irrigation face a volume problem first and a price problem second, so the El Niño drought impact on their income arrives through harvest size and not through the NFA buying price.
Power Exposure Splits by Region
Visayas spot power averaged ₱18.59 per kilowatt hour for the July 26 to August 25 billing period, while Luzon fell to ₱4.80. An official in the same briefing expected no major El Niño effect on Luzon power before the first quarter of 2027, provided hydro plants are not depleted. Visayas buyers on spot prices already carry the cost. Luzon buyers carry a conditional risk tied to hydro reservoirs, Angat among them, and the El Niño drought impact on Luzon power depends on how much water remains once allocations settle.
Farms on Angat irrigation hold the smallest water share going into the dry season, and importers hold stock bought ahead of the shortfall. Metro Manila takes the smaller cut and has treatment sources in Laguna Lake, Cavite, and Parañaque to draw on. The El Niño drought impact will become visible in March, and the order in which users absorb it was set at the end of September.
More developments that reshape the operating environment in National Signal section of Hemos PH.
