PAGASA

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration , abbreviated as PAGASA or DOST-PAGASA, is the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services agency of the Philippines mandated to provide protection against natural calamities and to ensure the safety, well-being and economic security of all the people, and for the promotion of national progress by undertaking scientific and technological services in meteorology, hydrology, climatology, astronomy and other geophysical sciences. Created on December 8, 1972, by reorganizing the Weather Bureau, PAGASA now serves as one of the Scientific and Technological Services Institutes of the Department of Science and Technology.

History

The ''Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila''

Formal meteorological and astronomical services in the Philippines began in 1865 with the establishment of the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila in Padre Faura Street, Manila when Francisco Colina, a young Jesuit scholastic and professor at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila started a systematic observation and recording of the weather two or three times a day. Jaime Nonell, another Jesuit scholastic, wrote a brief treatise on these observations, which was printed by the Diario de Manila. The treatise attracted the attention of businessmen in Manila, leading to a request to the Jesuit director, Fr. Juan Vidal, SJ, for regular observations to warn the public against approaching typhoons. The businessmen financed the procurement and acquisition of an instrument called the universal meteorograph which greatly aided the day and night observations of the weather.
In 1866, Federico Faura, SJ became the director of the observatory in recognition of his scientific abilities. During this time, the observatory was engaged in the systematic observation of Philippine weather. On July 7, 1879, after data comparison with another Jesuit cleric in the West Indies, the observatory issued a warning indicating that a tropical cyclone was crossing northern Luzon. The colonial government took every possible precaution based on the reliability of the warning. The slight losses from the typhoon finally and permanently cemented the reputation of the observatory. This was followed by a prediction in November 1879 that a tropical cyclone would pass by Manila.
The observatory began conducting seismological and terrestrial magnetism observations in 1880. In 1885, the observatory started time service and a system of visual weather warnings for merchant shipping. In 1886, the Faura Aneroid barometer was released. In 1887, a section devoted to the study of terrestrial magnetism was set up. Six years later, the first maps of terrestrial magnetism in the Philippines were published. In 1890, the seismological service was officially established. In 1899, the astronomical section was opened.
This reputation reached foreign shores, and other observatories began requesting for the monthly Boletin del Observatorio de Manila. The growing demand for the services of the observatory led to the issuance of a Spanish royal decree on April 21, 1894, that recognized the observatory as an official institution under the Jesuit order, with full support from the Spanish Crown. This led to the establishment of a network of secondary stations in various points of Luzon and Visayas.

American period: The Weather Bureau

Following the Spanish–American War and under the Treaty of Paris, on December 10, 1898, Spain ceded the Philippine Islands to the United States. After a period of great political turbulence that climaxed in the outbreak of Philippine–American War in 1899, an Insular Government was established. On May 22, 1901, the Philippine Commission enacted Act No. 131, reorganizing the Manila Observatory into the Weather Bureau under the Department of Interior. With the establishment of the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources on January 1, 1917, the Weather Bureau was transferred from the Department of Interior to the DANR. With the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the DANR was reorganized into the Department of Agriculture and Commerce.
For nearly 45 years, the Weather Bureau remained active and famous in international expositions and scientific expeditions and continued to be well known for its accurate typhoon forecasts and scientific works in the field of meteorology, geomagnetism, and astronomy. The first weather map in the Far East, released in 1908 by Fr. Coronas, became an important tool in tropical cyclone forecasting thereon. The bureau's published works on meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, and astronomy were well known and had later proven to be of great value to the American forces in the liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese during the Second World War.

Second World War

On October 4, 1943, with the establishment of the Second Philippine Republic as a puppet state of Japan during its occupation, the Weather Bureau was transferred to the Department of Public Works and Communications. The bureau was removed from the direction of the Jesuits and for the first time, the bureau had an all-Filipino staff headed by Mr. Maximo Lachica, head of the Department of Geodetic Engineering of the University of the Philippines. The Japanese occupation period marked limited activity in the Central Office. However, in the field, bureau personnel were instrumental in bringing accurate weather information over enemy-occupied territory to the combined liberation forces of the American and Filipino soldiers.
In February 1945, the Second World War brought the operations of the Weather Bureau to a halt when its offices were destroyed during the Battle of Manila. Nothing but the burnt-out shell of its astronomical dome along Padre Faura Street bore testimony to its once glorious past. All the instruments, records, and mass of scientific knowledge accumulated through the decades were lost. After the war, the Observatorio ceased to function as the Weather Bureau. The Observatorio resumed independent operations in 1951 as the Manila Observatory.

Postwar Era (1945–1972): Rebirth

The rebirth of the Weather Bureau began on July 24, 1945, when it was reestablished by seven constituent personnel under the leadership of Edilberto Parulan as Officer-in-Charge. In 1946, under the Tydings War Damage Act, a US Weather Bureau mission was sent to Manila by the United States government to undertake a survey of the needs of the Weather Bureau. As a result, the Bureau was able to acquire meteorological equipment and technical assistance from the United States that paved the way for the establishment of standard weather services patterned after similar meteorological institutions in more technically-advanced countries. Furthermore, the Weather Bureau was transferred to the Department of Commerce and Industry. The Bureau's functions were then carried out by five divisions.
In 1947, the central office of the Weather Bureau was moved to Marsman Building, opposite Pier 15 at the Port Area of Manila, while the Forecasting Center was transferred to the old Balagbag terminal, site of the first terminal of Manila International Airport, and became the Manila Main Meteorological Office. The first post-war geophysical observatory of the bureau was established in 1949 behind the campus of the University of the Philippines in Diliman. In 1948, a set of electromagnetic photo recording seismographs was installed to improve its seismological services. On April 5, 1949, the Philippines was admitted into the World Meteorological Organization, with the Weather Bureau as its national meteorological service. In the same year, temperature, relative humidity, and pressure observations in the upper atmosphere were made twice daily by the Laoag, Cebu and Zamboanga field stations.
In 1950, a teletype service-connected the MMMO to Clark Air Force Base, US Naval Station Sangley Point and the Bureau of Telecommunications began in the geophysical observatory.
Weather surveillance radar was first installed in the Philippines in 1963 atop the Central Office of the Weather Bureau. In 1965, on its centenary, half of the weather stations across the country were already linked with each other by single side-band radio transceivers, forming an independent meteorological communication system. In 1968, the Philippines joined the Typhoon Committee formed by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East and the WMO. 1969 saw the transfer of the central office from the Marsman Building to 1424, Quezon Boulevard Extension in Quezon City.
1969 also ushered in the 5-year "WMO Training and Research Project, Manila". Composed of the Institute of Meteorology in the Weather Bureau and the Department of Meteorology in the University of the Philippines, the project aimed to meet the training needs of the country's meteorological personnel and to carry out research in various fields of meteorology. The institute provided technical in-service training at various levels while the Department offered a post-graduate course leading to a Master of Science degree in meteorology. With the implementation of the project, the acquisition of an IBM 1130 was realized and computerization in the bureau came of age. A telemetry system in the Marikina River Basin was then set up which led to the bureau's initial efforts in flood forecasting.
Satellite meteorology came to the Philippines in 1970 when an Automatic Picture Transmission system was set up to intercept photo transmission of the upper atmosphere by weather satellites. The first post-war major research initiative of the bureau was launched in the same year. Called the "Typhoon Research Project, its launch in 1970 was made possible through the financial assistance of the National Science Development Board. In 1971, upon the invitation of the Philippines, the ECAFE/WMO Joint Unit was reallocated in Manila and was rechristened as the Typhoon Committee Secretariat. In the same year, the linking of five weather surveillance radars installed across different parts of the country and the Manila radar station paved the way for the Weather Radar Surveillance Network of the bureau.