ONLY HOPE

This does not look as easy as it is.

Aside from the President of the Philippines, perhaps there is no other government agency that receives more criticism than the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or PAG-ASA. After all, it is the institution responsible for providing flood and typhoon warnings, monitoring the weather and climate conditions around the country, and conducting astronomical and meteorological studies, all of which will no doubt influence the day-to-day activities, operations, and behaviour of every human being living in the Philippines. Because of this huge responsibility and the possible vast consequences of the actions of PAG-ASA, the people expect perfect forecasts by the agency every single time. As a result, the populace may have a valid reason to complain when PAG-ASA predicts the weather wrong every once in a while.

But recently, PAG-ASA has been receiving criticism a lot more than once in a while. Starting with the disaster induced by the typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng all over Luzon in 2009, the agency served as a punching bag for right hooks, left jabs, and 1-2 combinations of complaints from the victims and those who saw the horrors brought by typhoons Basyang in 2010, and Juaning just this month. The onslaught of typhoons has brought cancellations to classes and office work, sometimes in the middle of the day, causing anxiety attacks and severe headaches among parents and guardians alike, worried about the safety of their children at school and, occasionally, their profits at their pockets. The dissatisfaction with its performance took center-stage in August 2010, when President Benigno Aquino III himself voiced his own disapproval of the state of the agency, paving the way to current personnel changes and equipment modernization.

With all the bruises and wounds received by PAG-ASA from verbal assaults of alleged incompetence, is it fair to criticize the agency in such a manner? Is it right to blame PAG-ASA for all the things it gets blamed for by the masses?

Of course, the safe answer for this question will be both YES and NO. YES because it is impossible that for its 28 ½ years of existence, there is no way that PAG-ASA had nothing to do with the failures the people are accusing them of. Still, I believe that PAG-ASA does not deserve to receive so much criticism for its alleged incompetence, specifically in the two particular areas upon which the agency is being blamed on: inability to provide consistently correct weather forecasts and slow dissemination of information concerning matters that may be affected by said predictions.

First of all, PAG-ASA does provide consistently correct weather forecasts. If they were not consistently correct, then the country will be in complete disarray at the moment, wondering whether some god simply tripped and fell so forcefully it wiped out the entire universal order. In fact, you have to be impressed with the ability of these scientists’ ability to give out mostly accurate scientific data, given the dire situation of the agency, which brings me to my next point: despite the popular belief that there is no such thing as an instrumental error, more times than not the forecasts of PAG-ASA are caused by the ineffectiveness and a lack of modernization of their equipment. Well, not until recently.

For years, PAG-ASA has relied on the Public Storm Warning Signals System, where the strength of the winds of a typhoon and its speed are classified into four categories, which are, well, I, II, III, and IV. While more advanced countries basically use the same style of classifying storms, the problem with this system is that it only considers the wind part of the storm; it never indicates any close-enough intensity of the rain part. This is precisely why the disaster of Ondoy and Pepeng took place; it was because the people were not ready for it. However, the modern nations have a Doppler radar, an instrument for indicating the characteristics of rainfall, for that purpose. In the Philippines, the device was not installed into the weather-tracking system until just the end of last year in Baler, Aurora and Baguio. In addition, an automated rain gauge has finally been added in Montalban, Rizal in cooperation with Smart Communications for easier dissemination of information.

Although the modernization of equipment is a welcome addition to PAG-ASA, some issues arise from it. The so-called advancement of the weather forecasting system relative to global standards is just like scoring a point after being down by a huge margin with 15 seconds in the game: came too little, way too late. Oh well, at least it is better than nothing. Besides, we Filipinos are very skilled and are completely capable of finding our way around things. I had the opportunity of seeing a simpler version (maybe it really was the real version, but I am not sure) of the Landslide Early Warning Sensor in a field trip to the University of the Philippines, and I was genuinely impressed by the device. Sometimes, it makes me wonder: if the Philippine government has the time and money to attract foreign investors to the Philippines, why don’t they actively encourage them more to invest on the inventions and devices of our own inventors and manufacturers instead on some business front controlled by crocodiles disguised as honourable gentlemen?

Speaking of honourable gentlemen, PAG-ASA has traditionally received the rage of the populace for their children, friends, or relatives feeling like they’re walking in the rain, claiming that it releases information so slowly that it often causes inconvenience for the Filipinos. While that may apply for the past few years (it is another main point of the President’s criticism), the same cannot be said true for the current situation, as PAG-ASA changed its information dissemination regarding weather forecasts from every 6 hours to every one hour.

So who should the people blame? Of course, it should be the local government units that should shoulder the main bulk of criticism. Yes, aside from the corruption and all that usual beliefs about the activities of our congressmen, mayors, and councillors, the same honourable gentlemen that you chose (or allowed to be chosen by other people) are to blame. No matter how skilled the men and women at PAG-ASA are, the local government units are still the ones who should know what is best for their respective constituencies, given that they are representing these people and, theoretically, should know most of their needs. So if that is the case, then why is it so hard for them to decide whether classes will be suspended or whether to evacuate or not, early enough to avoid inconveniences?

Then again, what else is new in this country? It seems that we just cannot keep up with the rest of the world in terms of just about anything. Our justice system is so slow that it takes at least 8 years to solve a low-profile homicide and murder case. Our economic growth is so slow that it makes you wonder if there is any true growth at all. It seems the only things we are fast at is texting, typing pointless status messages in our Facebook accounts, and running away from our responsibilities and even our own national identity. We tend to accuse somebody or something of something that is sometimes completely out of their control that we imply a tone of arrogance or know-it-all over them. If you think you can do a better job than these men and women, then why don’t you actually do their jobs yourselves and see if you really think you can do a better job than these men and women?

The current situation of PAG-ASA simply shows the complete lack of faith and hope by the Filipinos in their government. It may be true that the problems in our country as deeply rooted and seems impossible to overcome, but since Filipinos are supposed to be strong-spirited and determined to make something out of nothing, then it is best for us to be more fair and critical in terms of our opinions on our surroundings. After all, there is a reason why it is called weather predicting, especially now that the impacts of climate change makes the mood of nature even harder to tell. You can only hope for the best.

Some people deserve better treatment. Those at PAG-ASA are some of them.