This article catches me stranded by tropical depression Bebeng, the country’s second weather disturbance, right in the middle of summer and in surprising fulfillment of the Pagasa prediction that this summer is going to be a wet one. Leyte is however no stranger to wetness, where it is said it rains at least 22 days a month.
But the rains of Leyte that have made it to conventional wisdom are not like this one, which have been induced by Bebeng, complete with howling winds. And while Leytenos are used to weather disturbances — life goes on here, oblivious to the storm — I am not. I am anxious for developments about the weather.
Unfortunately, this is the Philippines, where the weather is far less important than the lives of movie stars. Philippine newspapers carry regular weather reports that are no bigger than a man’s thumb, and buried deep, deep in the inside pages where they cannot be found unless sought for with the intensity and dedication of a search for the Holy Grail.
Consider this: There is already a typhoon bearing on the capital, yet no major television network saw any merit to break out from their regular weekend programming to regularly bring constant weather updates concerning Bebeng and its progress. Even ANC, which is supposed to be an all-news network, takes a break on weekends, even when there is a storm coming.
A country’s interest in the weather and weather news is reflective of its economic status and standing in the global community. In turn, that country’s economic status and standing in the global community is reflected in the way its prominence, or lack of it, is played out in the global news reports.
So, while the Philippines gives little regard for weather news, allowing no more than a man’s thumb sized report buried in the inside pages and probably just rehashed daily by some sub editor without actually consulting Pagasa, other countries devote entire sections on the weather.
A weather section in an American newspaper can run anywhere from at least four full pages in color to as much as eight. This is reflective of America’s economic strength. The weather is very important for someone making a delivery, for example, from New York on the east coast to California in the west. What happens on the way, weather-wise, can tell on the integrity of that delivery.
One’s standing in the global community is indicated in the prominence of a country in weather reports. Anyone who has watched the weather reports of CNN or the BBC is likely to notice before long that there is hardly any interest given to what the weather may be like in the Philippines.
Unless some great weather-related disaster strikes the Philippines, or when the weather in the Philippines is likely to affect the lives and the economy of some other country, our country is often simply ignored. Precious airtime is almost never wasted on countries like the Philippines.
But when the foreign networks do decide to bring the Philippines into focus on their weather reports, they are almost always more factual and comprehensive that the local reports, which tend to prefer stories and scenes of human interest rather than real information that could save more lives.
The Philippines likes to believe that it is in the forefront of the global effort pertaining to environmental protection and climate change. But that is often more just idle talk and posturing. For how can a country really be serious about such serious concerns when it cannot even devote the size of a human palm to a weather report?
Again, this is the middle of summer, and yet here we are, getting hit dead smack with a typhoon. That alone ought to tell us so much about what we make so much noise about but do so little for afterward. Climate change is upon us, yet for all the hubris, our concern for the weather is, well, weather-weather lang.