TOL: Make weather advisories easier to understand
SENATOR Francis ‘Tol’ Tolentino today reiterated his position that PAGASA’s weather advisories should be simplified for ordinary Filipinos to help communities prepare better for oncoming typhoons.
“Weather advisories should be easily understood by ordinary Filipinos, that way we can save lives. These should be simplified and translated to local languages,” Tolentino said in an interview on DWIZ.
“To describe the estimated amount of rainfall, PAGASA should avoid using millimeters or color coded warnings because these are technical terms that are difficult to understand,” he added.
“We can say, for instance, how many drums of rainwater are forecast to be dumped in an area at a certain time due to the typhoon,” added the senator, who has extensive experience in disaster mitigation and response as long-time Chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA).
He suggested to PAGASA to collaborate with linguistics experts from the University of the Philippines, mass media, and communication experts to make the weather agency’s bulletins simpler and easier to comprehend for the ordinary Filipino.
In addition, Tolentino is pushing for the sharing of resources among local government units (LGUs), and between the public and private sectors to optimize the use of vital facilities and equipment needed to respond to disasters.
“LGUs can share the use of evacuation centers. When one province or cluster of LGUs is severely hit by a calamity, including its evacuation centers, the adjacent province, which was less affected, could share its facilities, and vice versa,” he explained.
He also suggested that the Department of Public Works and Highways tap private construction firms for the deployment of heavy equipment, including backhoes and bulldozers, so that roads and bridges blocked by landslides could be cleared immediately to facilitate rescue and relief efforts.
Tolentino said resorting to such measures becomes even more urgent, and could save lives, as stronger and more frequent storms continue to batter the country.
