A PAGASA Upgrade

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 NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The Japan International Cooperation Agency is set to dispatch experts to the country to conduct basic design studies for the Japanese government’s Doppler radar project with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration. According to PAGASA director Prisco Nilo, the first Doppler radars in the country will be installed in Aparri, Cagayan; Virac, Catanduanes; and Guiunan, Eastern Samar by next year, if everything goes well. The radars are part of a P500-million JICA grant to PAGASA.

Doppler radars have long been included in the arsenals of weather bureaus in developed countries, and a country that is battered by numerous destructive typhoons every year, which usually results in the loss of lives and the destruction of crops and property desperately needs the ability to produce short term but highly accurate weather forecasts, track cloud development, and estimate the amount of rainfall, all of which are possible because of Doppler radar.The installation of Doppler radar sites should greatly improve the accuracy of PAGASA’s weather forecasts, especially if PAGASA hits its target of installing a total of 10 Doppler radar sites nationwide by 2010, and even more so if it finally gets to acquire the country’s first ever satellite forecasting system.

We are thankful for the JICA grant that will jumpstart the long awaited upgrade of PAGASA’s equipment and capabilities by installing three Doppler radar sites in the country. We hope that the Philippine government can sustain this positive start by allocating the appropriate resources for the improvement of PAGASA. This means funding the completion of the nationwide Doppler radar network and the acquisition of a satellite forecasting system. It also means making sure that the money earmarked for those critical projects is not stolen by that ubiquitous breed of government officials whose purpose in life is self-enrichment, rather than public service.This also means providing PAGASA with a working budget so that all the modern equipment it has acquired will not fall into disrepair and misuse.

Accurate weather forecasting may seem like a luxury if compared to other more pressing concerns like food security, but if you take into consideration the losses in lives, crops, and property that the people of this country sustain every year during the devastating typhoon season, the importance of accurate weather reports becomes clear as day.*