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INQUIRER NET
News: February 21, 2024
Filipinos urged to conserve water, food, power to cushion El Niño
impact
A Malacañang official urged the public to make “little behavioral
changes” in conserving water, food and energy resources as El Niño’s effects
“cannot be quantified and predicted.”
In an interview on the state-run television program “Bagong Pilipinas
Ngayon” on Tuesday, Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Assistant
Secretary Joey Villarama said the government has started conservation
efforts and Filipinos should also do their part.
“We should not let our guard down, just because the government said
we have enough water and food and there will be no interruption in electricity
until a certain period of the year. We should do our share to help,” said the
PCO official who is also spokesperson for Task Force El Niño.
“The government will get the ball rolling, but we also ask our countrymen to
help in curbing El Niño’s impact. How? Through behavioral changes, those
little things will be a big help in conserving our resources,” he said.
One example of “behavioral changes,” Villarama said, would be to
remember to switch off lights or appliances when these are not in use.
But aside from conserving energy, people must also brace for the worst, he
added.
“You cannot quantify what you cannot predict. We’re up against nature.
We’re already feeling the effects of a strong and mature El Niño,” Villarama
said.
“Because we are up against nature, we don’t know if it will destroy our
crops any further. So we will intensify our monitoring and reassess not just the
water, food and energy supply but everything. Even our people’s health,
because we are already suffering from the heat,” he said.
The PCO official made the remarks amid reports that the weather
phenomenon has so far damaged rice and corn crops in the country worth
P151.4 million.
Earlier, Villarama said that a total of 41 provinces have been affected by El
Niño, with Western Visayas and Zamboanga Peninsula the hardest hit.
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INQUIRER NET
News: February 20, 2024
‘Epidemic of loneliness’ affects Fil-Ams
SAN FRANCISCO – Experts confirm that immigrants – long coping with social and
economic challenges – have been struggling with loneliness, a condition often hidden and
dismissed as a passing emotion.
In fact, says Dr. Jei Africa, director of the Behavioral Health & Recovery Services division at the
San Mateo Health System, loneliness if unaddressed may lead to serious adverse physical health
outcomes or worse.
“According to US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, the mortality impact of loneliness has a
similar effect as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It is associated with greater risks of dementia, stroke,
anxiety and premature death,” Africa said at the Feb. 12 meeting of the Daly City Council where
San Mateo County’s second largest city voted unanimously to pass a resolution declaring
loneliness a public health crisis.
San Mateo County Behavioral Health & Recovery Services Director Dr. Jei Africa urges caring
connections to combat loneliness. CONTRIBUTED
“It is this reason why we should pay attention to it and find ways to increase social
connection among individuals, families and communities,” stressed Africa, a Filipino American
and San Mateo County’s foremost authority on mental health. “Loneliness is a complex issue.
When we say it’s a public health crisis, (we add that) it will also take a public health solution of us
working as a community toward prevention and early intervention.”
Africa was referring to the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” US Surgeon General
Vivek Murthy warned about in an urgent advisory last year.
Last month the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors became the first county leadership in the
nation to declare loneliness a public health crisis per proposal of Supervisor David Canepa, who
represents District 5, encompassing Colma, Brisbane, parts of South San Francisco and South San
Francisco, and all of Daly City.
Daly City, home of the highest concentration of Filipinos on the US mainland, followed suit,
becoming one of if not the first US city to adopt the measure. The Feb. 12 resolution directs the
city’s leaders to find solutions to the national concern.
Staggering statistics
“We cannot ignore the statistics – loneliness exists in our City. Declaring loneliness a
public health crisis brings awareness and opens up new opportunities to collaborate and partner
with the County, as well as local non-profit organizations,” Mayor Juslyn Manalo said in
introducing the resolution.
Over half of Daly City’s residents are foreign born and almost 20 percent are 65 years or
older, Leilani Ramos, assistant to the City Manager, said in a presentation preceding the resolution
vote, to highlight the impact of loneliness on her city’s population. The pandemic exacerbated the
situation, she said, with older immigrants saying they had never felt lonely, she said, until the
height of the worldwide calamity.
Older immigrants from foreign countries are “particularly susceptible to loneliness, attributed in
part to shifts in language, cultural norms, social networks and experiences of racism and/or
discrimination,” she cited “national research” results.
San Mateo County statistics reflect the same, said Africa.
 “In our 2022 Quality of Life survey we found that about 45 percent experienced some sort
of isolation,” said the doctor of psychology who earned his undergraduate degree in UP Manila. He
and his team noted the “staggering increase of 16 percent” of residents who said they had no one to
turn to in the past month” despite having been in a “crowd of people earlier but at the end of the
day” find themselves alone or lonely.
“That’s really concerning for us,” he emphasized.
Africa, who headed the County of Marin BHRS prior to taking his current post, said “men,
adults with lower socioeconomic-economic status, Asian American and Pacific Islanders,
Hispanics, LGBTQ+ folks and people living in North County often reported that they don’t have
any social connection or any network.”
Presenter Dr. Hakan Ozcelikh, professor of management for the College of Business at Sacramento
State University defined loneliness as “an unpleasant emotional condition that creates
psychological, physiological, physical, and sociological effects, causing people to behave in ways
that are self-defeating.”
It is “a social phenomenon that needs immediate attention,” he concluded.
Spurring social connections
Exercising cultural humility, Africa said his team is in the very early but vigorous stage “in this
work to embed and integrate what Murthy has shared about the 6 pillars” or strategies to combat
loneliness and isolation.
The county is already in the midst of collaborative projects involving BHRS, Aging & Adult
Services (AAS) and Public Health & Policy to address the issue, said Africa.
Ongoing is a project to “connect people digitally, give access to technology – especially older
adults – so they can be connected” to their peers even if they’re geographically separated or
distant.
AAS provides trainings on technology in Tagalog, Spanish, Cantonese and English to “decrease
the digital divide.”
Another connectivity channel is the “friendship line” run by the Institute of Aging that Africa said
received 1,000 calls from July through December 2023 and made calls to the same number the
same period.
Recognizing the high susceptibility of older adults to loneliness, BHRS conducts a suicide
prevention program to “raise awareness of folks about the science of mental health,” and as an
added benefit “give opportunities to come together, relate to each other, especially those affected
or interested.”
“We fund peer counseling services provided by Peninsula Family Service,” said Africa, who
shared a program that trains Fil-Ams to become counselors for isolated Fil-Ams, as it does for
Chinese, LGBTQ+ and English-speaking people, in groups or as individuals.
“We can invest in policies and infrastructures that bring people together, create events and
opportunities that foster connections, but we can also start individually in our own lives, with our
own personal relationships,” he told Inquirer.net USA after the council meeting.
“We can reach out to family, friends, even the ones who are doing well. We can work on
destigmatizing loneliness by talking about it and engaging in conversations by acknowledging that
many people are lonely and isolated.”

In other words, never underestimate the power of a simple phone call, an email or a text because it
can make a difference in the quality of life for someone battling loneliness