DAVAO CITY—The country’s weather station will back up its important processing and data-management operations under its so-called redundancy program, constructing a new center to duplicate the functions currently done in its Metro Manila operation.
Vicente B. Malano, acting administrator of Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), said here the project is part of a P3-billion modernization fund. The modernization fund, according to Malano, would include the construction of a facility in Pagasa’s Mactan, Cebu, regional center to house the reading of atmospheric and land-based weather information.
Data processing is currently done in our main Diliman, Quezon City office, according to Malano, adding the Cebu center would now do the same operation in the areas near and around the Visayas and Mindanao. “The data acquired would still be forwarded to the Metro Manila center for processing, but the Cebu center would now be capable of handling and processing the same data,” he said. “This is our redundancy program so that we can preserve and protect the data gathered.”
The Cebu center would also handle the data management, also currently based in its Quezon City center, he added.
The Pagasa maintains five regional centers, and includes also its Tuguegarao center for the northern Luzon area in Legaspi City for its southern Luzon area, and in El Salvador, Misamis Oriental, for the Mindanao area.
The redundancy program was crafted due to the vulnerability of its data to natural threats, as well as to the recent cyber attacks of government Internet web sites. The Pagasa is slated to proceed to Bohol for its second leg of public hearing on the implementing rules and regulations of the Pagasa Modernization Act of 2015, tagged Republic Act 10692, which was enacted in November last year,
The modernization would acquire additional “supercomputers,” one to be installed also in Cebu to help it function as a redundancy office. More Doppler radars would also be purchased for the five regional centers and satellite stations to be used to monitor atmospheric data and disturbances, while high-frequency Doppler radars would be used “to observe ocean waves to help and guide us about inland and coastal sea travel around the archipelago.”
Other field instruments would be installed in the 13 other major river basins outside Luzon. Malano said the five river basins in Luzon have their own instruments already. The five regional centers would have to acquire also calibration instruments to check yearly the calibration of all weather-monitoring gadgets.