SENATE President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto expressed confidence Wednesday that the bill modernizing the country’s 150-year-old state weather bureau would be enacted into law.
Otherwise, Recto warned the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical’s (Pagasa) budget will drop by 86.2 percent.
The senator said the budget for new Pagasa’s equipment will plunge to P343.66 million in 2016 or an 86.2-percent drop from this year’s P2.48 billion capital outlay.
“(The cut in the budget) won’t happen if the Pagasa bill is signed into law. That is the hope of Pagasa. I am confident that the President will do so. So my forecast is that good news is on the horizon,” Recto said.
Recto stressed the need for a modernized Pagasa to address extreme weather disturbances like Typhoon "Lando" and the projected dry spell by El Niño.
“It’s one app the country must have in this era of climate change,” he said, noting that Pagasa modernization remains a “missing link” in the country’s climate adaptation efforts.
“There can be no climate change adaptation without weather bureau modernization,” he added.
The measure seeks to increase Pagasa's budget by P3 billion to enable the weather bureau to deliver “reliable, timely, localized” forecast.
Recto said the bill supports Pagasa’s seven modernization components: equipment and operational techniques, data center, information services, human resources, regional and field weather presence, research and global linkages.
He said the key component is for the state weather bureau to go to local by deploying weather equipment and personnel in as many areas in the country as possible.
He added the measure authorizes a “package of personnel retention schemes” to discourage Pagasa personnel from “leaving the Philippine area of responsibility” for higher pay abroad.
The bill also authorizes salary and other compensation adjustments and funding for training and scholarships.
“The ferocious, fickle and frequent storms caused by climate change call for a strengthened weather agency, which can warn and guide the public on how to respond to threats to lives and properties,” Recto said.
The senator said a parade of cyclones from 2004 to 2014 left 14,150 dead 46,691 injured, 4,169 missing; damaged 5.5 million houses and destroyed P338 billion worth of properties.
Many studies, he said, have tagged the Philippines as the “second most disaster-prone country in the world.”
“But even without the Philippines sitting on the typhoon belt, a modern weather bureau is still needed because human activities are weather-dependent, so we need a dependable weather service,” Recto said. (Sunnex)