STATEMENT OF
MS. ROSALINA DE GUZMAN
(Chief, Climate and Agrometeorology Data Section
Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical
Services Administration)
I was invited by Ms. Veronica Cabe, a petitioner in the human rights and
climate change case, to act as a resource person for the petitioners to share the
highlights of a peer-reviewed research I co-authored entitled, “Long-term Trends
and Extremes in Observed Daily Precipitation and Near Surface Air Temperature
in the Philippines for the Period 1951-2010” and latest PAGASA information on
climate change impacts in the first public hearing of the case on March 27-28 at the
Commission on Human Rights in Quezon City, Philippines.
I accepted the invitation and I am available on 27 March 2018 hearing.
Copies of the study and my Curriculum Vitae are appended to this statement as
Annexes “A” and “B.”
I recalled that Ms. Desiree Llanos-Dee of Greenpeace Southeast Asia
(Philippines), one of the petitioners in this case, visited me sometime last year in
my office at Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration in Quezon City inviting me also to be a resource person for the
petitioners. She was, at that time, accompanied by the legal representatives of the
petitioners, Attorneys Zelda Soriano and Hasminah Paudac.
On 09 March 2018, Attorney Paudac went to see me at my office, together
with Ms. Cabe, requesting for a statement for the March public hearing. I briefly
described to Attorney Paudac and Ms. Cabe the study we had regarding the longterm and current observed trends of the Philippines’ climate and our vulnerabilities
to the impacts of climate-related hazards.
I explained that since 1950s, the Philippine climate, like the rest of the
world, is warming. From 1951-2010, there has been an increasing trend in annual
mean temperature by 0.65 o C. Daily temperature extremes reveal more hot days
and fewer cold nights. This observation was based on the trends in the frequency of
days with minimum temperature below the 1st percentile (cold nights) and the
trends in frequency of days with maximum temperature above the 99th percentile
(hot days).
With regard to trends in extreme daily rainfall, majority of the weather
stations all over the Philippines showed increasing trend in the number of days
with extreme rainfall events. Rainfall trends in some synoptic weather stations
show a significant increase in both intensity and frequency, particularly in the
cities of Laoag, Infanta, Tacloban, Iloilo, and Cotabato.