Out there in the mountains, some folk have been reading the skies to predict the weather, without the aid of scientific instruments.

"Indeed," Mrs. Agatha Watchorna who traces her roots to Kadaclan, Barlig, Mountain Province agreed in a brief chat last week, that this has been a practice among the old folks in her village.

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"Some of our old folks can foretell if a typhoon is coming by watching the appearance of orange-streaked clouds on the horizon at sunrise or sundown," she said.

"There must be more to that," I shrugged.

Like me, she can only recall bits of information about how the old folks predicted the weather and understood the fickle ways of a typhoon.

She is now past 50 years old and can only remember that the old folks called this storm cloud "latekhia".

Her husband, Omer, in a follow-up conversation said that the old folks also have a way of knowing the onset of "fetil" or drought.

This passing chat with Mrs. Watchorna reminded me about an old man from Besao, Mt. Province. He and his family migrated to Sta. Ines, Tanay, Rizal Province way back in the 70's. Visiting my relatives there after high school, I soon learned that this man reads the skies to help him decide when to plant his fields of rice. He particularly looks at the shape of the moon from which he formulates his planting schedules. He is now dead and I missed the precise details of his calculations. He was a successful father, having sent a large brood of children to college from his income as a rice farmer.

Former residents of the Cordillera mountain ranges developed a body of knowledge and understanding of the local climate and weather, which the succeeding generations considered baseless and part of superstition.

How could we have snubbed a common sense science and lost our indigenous knowledge that could have proved useful as an alternative if not an aid to interpreting Pagasa's weather forecast announcements?

Until Pagasa came along, weather forecasting was made by local folks and actions on livelihood and family well-being based on the weather and climatic conditions were individual decisions.

Without an imposing authority on the weather, villagers consulted each other about their understanding or knowledge of the signs in the skies, the behavior of birds and insects and other weather indicators. The practice aided them to carry out plans in planting, hunting, timbering, repairing houses and irrigation canals, among other things.

In the Cordillera, the old folks can declare whether the typhoon season is over with the coming and going of the bird they call "killing." With the bird's arrival, some folks still listen to how the bird sings and make predictions if weaker storms are yet coming to disturb the local weather.

The western tribes in Mountain Province are bird watchers, a hobby they used to develop their own agricultural calendars. I saw one such calendar in Sagada, Mountain Province. One weakness of this practice along with the observance of the arrival of the bird "killing" is the continuing disappearance of the birds which marked the changing of the seasons.

Last year, I wondered why farmers in the Mountrail Trail vegetable belt in Benguet and Mountain Province insisted in planting their crops within the frost season from November-January.

As Pagasa announced the occurrence of frost in Baguio last December, it added that its occurrence could be worst in the highlands of Benguet. It fueled speculations about the impending shortage of supplies of vegetables in the market.

Unlike the farmers, the public's reaction and speculations on the impact of the weather on the supply of vegetables was largely influenced by Pagasa's announcements.

When Benguet Governor Fongwan announced that there was sufficient production of vegetables from the province, the public concluded that Pagasa, "as usual," incurred another blunder.

Pagasa did actually carry out its usual weather prediction. It did not necessarily make another blunder, I guess.

There was no shortage of vegetables because the farmers understood the weather better.

Being dependent on farming as their source of livelihood and income, the farmers were forced to study and learn the climate and weather and adapt to its location-specific consequences, effects and impacts.

During the occurrences of frost, they knew the places that they will plant specific crops; the places where frost usually had the severest impact; and they are ready with their mitigation remedies.

This simply demonstrates how experiences, practical knowledge and coping strategies developed by the people cannot simply taken for granted and dismissed as unscientific without documenting these and given deeper analysis.

We need to learn the science of climate change and weather prediction by reading scientific instruments; and, reading the signs of nature as our ancestors did with the heavens, the behavior of animals, and changes in the temperature of the wind and changes in the color or appearances of the plants.