Mayon spews ash; nearby residents told to prepare

Four months after state volcanologists raised the alert level for it, Mayon Volcano in Bicol exploded before dawn Wednesday, spewing ash reaching over 1000 meters up in the air.But while Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) head Renato Solidum Jr. said it was the most powerful explosion since July, the alert level for Mayon remained at “2.”

Blamed for disaster, floodway settlers are immovable force

TAYTAY, Rizal – Save for lacy curtains and a crumpled poster of a perfume bottle, the first floor of Sarah Hernandez’s small concrete home is completely bare. Whatever was spared by Tropical Storm Ondoy was moved to the second floor, where she, her husband, and their two young children have stayed for the last three weeks.

On a recent sunny day, with news of another storm approaching, Sarah finally found time to clean. As she looked around the emptiness with a cleaning broom in hand, Sarah said, “Para tayong bagong panganak (It’s like the day we were born).”

One month after Ondoy dumped a record amount of rainfall on Metro Manila and its environs, Sarah and her family are like the untold thousands still far from recovering from the storm.

Mandaluyong City

A rainbow over Mandaluyong’s skyline Wednesday afternoon brings hopes of calmer weather. – ERIC ANTONIO – GMANEWS.TV

Arroyo signs landmark climate change measure

In the aftermath of back-to-back storms that devastated some of the most populated areas in the country, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Friday signed into law the “Climate Change Act of 2009″ that will create a national strategy for dealing with the global issue.

President Arroyo signed Republic Act 9729, the consolidated version of Senate Bill No. 2583 and House Bill No. 5982, in simple ceremonies at the Rizal Hall of Malacañang with several legislators and local officials in attendance.

Under the new law, an autonomous policy-making body attached to the Office of the President to be called the Climate Change Commission will be created to coordinate the programs of the government and represent the country in international climate change conferences. It will be chaired by the President, who shall appoint three commissioners.

The signing of the law comes two months before a landmark conference in Copenhagen in December, when global leaders are expected to approve a new climate change treaty that will chart the world’s carbon emissions future after the first commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The new treaty will be voted upon by world leaders at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

Arroyo approves extreme Metro Manila makeover

MANILA, Philippines — Pushed by the great flood brought about by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (international codename: Ketsana), President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Thursday gave the go-signal for an urban development project that would rid Metro Manila of tens of thousands of informal settlers and modify its landscape.

At the Legislative and Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) meeting in Malacañang, Sen. Edgardo Angara broached the idea of changing the “topography and geography” of parts of Metro Manila in the wake of Ondoy’s devastation, according to Press Secretary Cerge Remonde.

Remonde said Ms Arroyo was amenable to the proposal and wanted the project to take off from the 1977 Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Project.

He lamented that the project received what he called a “Mona Lisa treatment” from previous administrations that allowed it to “just lay there and die.”

“Why should we start from scratch when there is already something?” Remonde said at a media briefing after the Ledac meeting. “The idea here is to use the master plan as a starting point.”

Scientists rethink theory in wake of Pacific quakes

MANILA, Philippines—A sudden cluster of massive earthquakes, which has shaken Asia-Pacific communities and likely left thousands dead, has also jolted some scientists, who are starting to question conventional thought.

Experts, who had dismissed the notion that far-away quakes could be linked, are beginning to have second thoughts  after huge tremors rocked Samoa and Indonesia on the same day, followed by another major convulsion in Vanuatu.

Thursday’s magnitude 7.6, 7.8 and 7.3 earthquakes in Vanuatu also came just minutes after a large tremor shook the Philippines.

Some 184 people died in the terrifying tsunami that smashed into Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga on Sept. 30, while thousands are feared dead after parts of Indonesia’s Padang city were reduced to rubble just hours later.

On Thursday, thousands of panicked people fled the coast as a rapid succession of large quakes off Vanuatu set off a tsunami warning for much of the South Pacific.

At 10:41 a.m. on Oct. 8, a very deep magnitude-6.7 earthquake was recorded in the Celebes Sea, 320 km south of Zamboanga in Mindanao.

Mayon Volcano’s sulfur dioxide emission rate increases

State volcanologists on Monday observed a nearly 350-ton increase in the sulfur dioxide emission rate of Mayon Volcano in Albay province in the Bicol region.

In its latest update, the Philppine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said that the volcano emitted 853 tons of SO2 in the past 24 hours.

Phivolcs recorded only 505 tons last October 10; 761 tons last October 8, and 350 tons last October 7.

While the volcano’s steaming activity remained moderate and while the crater glow remained obscure, Phivolcs said that they detected seven volcanic earthquakes during the past 24 hours – bringing to 43 the number of volcanic earthquakes recorded from October 5 to 11.

Mayon Volcano’s status, however, remained at Alert Level 2, which is characterized as “a state of unrest which could lead to more ash explosion or eventually to hazardous magmatic eruption.”

Fatal landslides threaten to isolate Baguio City

Relentless rain is causing landslides in Benguet province that have killed nine people and now threaten to isolate Baguio City. Of the three major roads leading to the nation’s largest upland urban center, only Marcos Highway has not been blocked by earth and rocks loosened by the weeklong downpour.

Of the nine fatalities in two separate landslides in Brgy. Ambassador in Tublay town, Benguet, one was a one-year-old child and a pregnant woman, the Office of Civil Defense in the Cordillera Administrative Region (OCD-CAR) said Wednesday.

Another landslide occurred in nearby Kilometer 16 of the barangay, which killed seven more residents, according to OCD-CAR officer-in-charge Olive Luces.

The disaster in northern Luzon is unfolding in the wake of Typhoon Pepeng, which was thought to be enroute to Taiwan when it was pushed back by another weather disturbance. The televised scenes of flooding and evacuations in Pangasinan and other northern provinces were chillingly familiar to residents of Metro Manila and surrounding provinces who are still recovering from the impact of Storm Ondoy less than two weeks ago.

“Kahapon pa malakas ang ulan dito. Saturated na ‘yung lupa kaya nagkakaroon ng landslides (It has been raining hard here since yesterday. The soil is already saturated, so landslides take place),” said Luces.

Laguna Lake showing abnormal rise of water

MANILA, Philippines – The Laguna Lake’s water level has risen abnormally, threatening to further inundate some eastern Metro Manila towns especially as a super typhoon looms.

Jun Mystica, officer-in-charge of the Laguna Lake Development Authority’s special concerns division-shore land management program, told The STAR of the “abnormal rising of the lake water” to 13.81 meters at the height of tropical storm “Ondoy’s” onslaught in Luzon last Saturday from its normal level of 12.5 meters. The water level went down to 13.33 meters as of 3 p.m. yesterday.

He said a huge volume of the lake’s water moved “landward” and flooded many outlying communities, including those that had never experienced flood before.

Mystica said the “slow recession” of the water in the lake has left many communities still under water since Saturday.

“What happened last Saturday was not the normal rising of the lake water but an abnormal rising of the lake water, which was not expected,” Mystica said.

Palawan gets high votes in search for New 7Wonders

MANILA, Philippines - Puerto Princesa’s Palawan Subterranean River National Park garnered the highest number of votes next to China’s Yushan Mountain among young voters in the online search for the New 7Wonders of Nature (N7WN).

Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano said that among the 28 official finalists, the country’s nominee in the N7WN got 16.5 percent of the votes from those aged 18 years and under, while Yushan Mountain got the top slot with 34.1 percent.

However, Durano said the site needs to capture the nod of other voters.

“While the site is popular among the youth, we still need to further push the Subterranean River to the other segments if we want to make it to the Top 7 in 2011,” he said.

Based on analysis of the online voting, Durano said that the country’s bet, which is the world’s longest traversable underground river, placed only 22nd among those 18 years old and above. It placed 7th among women and 22nd among men.