The removal of Dr. Prisco Nilo as director of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) due to “differences” with his “immediate superior” literally stirred up a storm last weekend.

The weatherman’s removal happened some three weeks after President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd publicly scolded the weather bureau during an emergency meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in Camp Agui-naldo.
President Aquino berated the weather agency, saying that timely updates are important to disaster preparation and Pagasa should have predicted that Typhoon Basyan (Conson) would go over Metro Manila. In his announcment last week, Aquino said that Nilo “never really bothered to explain” why Typhoon Basyang moved to a different direction as predicted.

Framed in this manner, the removal of Dr. Nilo smacks more of politics and reflects on how the President and the NDCC understand typhoon preparedness. They would rather fire the messenger than upgrade the bureau’s capacity to prepare for typhoons and disasters. Nilo becomes Aquino’s scapegoat for the NDCC and his administration’s inability to respond correctly to the disaster.

There are really two sides to this coin. The first is the NDCC’s understanding of the nature of typhoons.
Typhoons are really large masses of air spinning and moving over land and sea. Much like a spinning top that will be affected by the surface it is moving on, typhoons can change course depending on the local conditions of its landfall and other nearby weather systems. The predicted course given by Pagasa is obtained from an initial prediction from mathematical models, which are then updated to take into account possible changes.

The predicted course is thus useful within the accuracy and precision that their models and updates can give.

The NDCC and Aquino should thus only expect accuracy and precision within the capability of the measuring device. To require more from Pagasa, the president should have asked what equipment and human resources are needed instead of just putting blame on its department head.

In preparing for a typhoon, especially one that covers a large area and has strong winds, it is therefore not just a matter of alerting one region but ramping up the disaster preparedness systems of the adjoining regions and cities as well. If Pagasa pointed out that Central Luzon will be along the main path of the typhoon earlier in the day, the NDCC could have been prudent enough to alert Metro Manila and adjoining areas as well. Furthermore, the NDCC should have been more proactive in asking for updates instead of waiting for Pagasa to update their bulletin.

On the other hand, Pagasa ‘s problems are multifaceted. It is not really a matter of buying Doppler radars and having more powerful machines if there are no skilled scientists and technicians ready to crunch the data and transform it to a valid report. Some would like to think that buying these Doppler radars would solve the problem entirely, but we lack other basic equipment as well. It was surprising to hear from Pagasa in a forum in UP on rainfall and disasters some two weeks ago that not all provinces in the country have rainfall gauges.

It comes therefore as no surprise that researchers from the academe find it so hard to get raw meteorological data from Pagasa due to both the lack of weather stations in the country and the lack of access to records (if any) of rainfall and other weather events. Strengthening our capability to gather data on a local level and opening up this wealth of information to local researchers would spur research on the weather patterns in the country.

Pagasa ‘s meteorologists should also be up to speed in the latest atmospheric science and computational tools since (as everybody knows) weather forecasting is not just looking up the sky and testing the wind with your finger. They should continue training, do research and upgrade the overall capabilities of the bureau and weather forecasting as whole.

Sadly, Pagasa ‘s problems as a science-based bureau is reflective of the chronic low state of research and development within government and in the country as well. However, if government continues to blame the scientists instead of providing funds to upgrade their measurements, the brain drain that has gone on for so long will be difficult to reverse. Patriotic scientists who have opted to stay on despite low wages, general lack of research and development funds and local opportunities will be driven off instead of contributing to national development.

Government should fully tap the potential of the local scientific community by providing more research and development funds, better opportunities and jobs as well as adequate compensation. One way to do this is to embark on a program to build local industries for domestic production where our scientists and engineers can fully realize their skills.