No hope for Pagasa?

In one week, two powerful typhoons devastated half of the Philippine archipelago of 7,600 islands.

- TONY LOPEZ

The first, Tropical Cyclone Tino or Kalmaegi to non-Filipinos, entered Philippine territory on Nov. 2 and dropped a month’s rainfall in just 24 hours on the Visayas, central Philippines and parts of Mindanao.

With maximum sustained winds of 120 kph (making it a tropical cyclone) and gusts up to 150 kph, Tino was devastating. At least 204 died, 109 are missing, and 156 are injured, 2.4 million were affected or dislocated in 32 provinces across eight regions, primarily Central Visayas or Region 7 (Cebu), Western Visayas or Region 6 and Eastern Visayas or Region 8.

Cebu was shocked by a double whammy — Tino and a magnitude 6.9 earthquake on Sept. 30, 2025. The temblor affected some 747,979 individuals (216,947 families), left 79 people dead, 559 injured and damaged 134,229 houses (of which 7,295 were destroyed) along with P6.76 billion in infrastructure losses, said reliefweb.

Billed as a super typhoon (sustained winds of 185 kph and gusts of 230 kph), Uwan landed first in Catanduanes the other night and killed two — one in Catanduanes and the other in Catbalongan, Samar. It forced the evacuation of 1.2 million residents in low-lying or coastal areas, unnecessarily, thanks to the inept and poor typhoon tracking by our PAGASA (the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration). Can we not just call PAGASA by its simple name? Weather bureau. Anyway, I doubt that they deal in astronomy.

Since it became PAGASA, our weather bureau has been engaged in fanciful gobbledygook. What used to be simply a “storm” became a typhoon. Then typhoon became tropical cyclone (TC). Then PAGASA invented five TC signals, from what used to be three, based on wind speeds.