Hope for PAGASA?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The acronym of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration is PAGASA, the Filipino word for hope.

The wordplay may have been relevant when the weather bureau was established, but during recent times it has become an example of the figure of speech called irony.

The latest report citing a significant brain drain affecting the PAGASA is disturbing news, especially for a country that sits on the so-called typhoon belt, where an average of 20 typhoons storm across the archipelago every year. A weather bureau that can accurately predict the path and intensity of major weather disturbances like super typhoons is one of the critical elements in disaster preparedness.

A competent weather bureau is also of great import to a dominantly agricultural economy and the average Filipino farmer, whose crops and livelihood depend on PAGASA's advisories on the El Niño and La Niña phenomenon.

On the other hand, a weather bureau whose dwindling number of forecasters and scientists could soon be counted in single digits will not be able to provide a country with 70 million people and 7,107 islands the services it needs to survive. Maybe that glaring human resources problem would not be so serious if PAGASA had the hi-tech equipment that need less human intervention to be able to accurately predict and track weather disturbances, but the way things are, and we can see just how difficult things could be for our country if this disturbing trend continues.

Our government must find a way to retain the services of the few remaining Filipino meteorologists and find the means to increase their numbers. Unlike doctors and nurses who number in the thousands, the specialty nature of the job of weathermen makes them hard to come by. Yet, unlike doctors, nurses and teachers whose jobs involve the lives of individuals, the decisions and predictions of meteorologists affects whole countries.

They decide when ships stay in port, when airplanes are grounded, when schools and offices close, and when evacuations are inevitable. If we don't have any left, or if those left behind have to contend with outdated and inferior equipment to do their jobs, then our crops, our properties, and even our lives may be in greater peril the next time a super typhoon comes along.*