MANILA, Philippines ? A storm threatens to wallop the Philippines but a huge computer that dominates the forecasting room of the nation's weather service is in screensaver mode showing a cartoon pattern of unexploded bombs.

While tropical depression ?Pepeng? (international codename: Parma) ominously hovers near the main island of Luzon, the computer has no data to receive as the main weather radar on a hilltop in the northeastern resort of Baguio is out of action -- again.

This scenario played out Tuesday when Agence France-Presse visited the forecasters in Manila to examine why they failed to predict the ferocity of tropical storm ?Ondoy? (international codename: Ketsana) which killed nearly 300 people in and around the capital on September 26.

"Our old radar has limitations," said Fredolina Baldonado, a meteorologist at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

"It has a blind spot to the south and that includes Metropolitan Manila."

This, she said, explained why the forecasters were unable to warn the residents of Manila before 17 inches of rain -- the heaviest deluge in more than four decades -- was dumped on the nation's capital.

Asked why the radar was not working on Tuesday as Filipinos looked to Pagasa for guidance on tropical storm ?Ondoy,? senior weather forecaster Rene Paciente gave a matter-of-fact explanation about the radar breakdown in Baguio.

A landslide had disturbed the alignment of its antenna, and as a result could not transmit data to the forecaster's headquarters, Paciente said.

Stuck in the middle of the Pacific typhoon belt, the impoverished Southeast Asian archipelago's first line of defense for dangerous weather is Pagasa, an acronym which without any intended irony is the Filipino word for "hope".

The weather service has a limited network of radar stations to track an average of 19 typhoons that approach the country each year, with nine or 10 of those storms making landfall to claim a combined tally of hundreds of lives.

While weather forecasters around the world are often subject to derision for getting their predictions wrong, Pagasa is a particularly vulnerable target with critics using the events of recent weeks to strengthen their arguments.

However, Pagasa operations chief Nathaniel Cruz insisted he was in charge of a "24/7" system, manned at any one time by up to four forecasters.

They were supported by as many as three cartographers who plotted the weather systems on graphs, up to two weather satellite experts and two meteorological telecommunications men, he said.

Cruz also rejected one common assertion that Pagasa was not getting the government funding needed to perform properly.

"It is incorrect to say Pagasa has been left begging for funds," Cruz said, adding the government had given the weather service P4 billion (about $86 million) for equipment upgrades over the past five years.

Nevertheless, Pagasa?s headquarters is an old, squat building on a sprawling government compound in northern Manila that has been overrun by squatters.

One side of the street houses Pagasa, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and other government agencies, while on the other side and behind the buildings are shanty towns housing thousands of squatters.

Cruz urged people to focus on a plan to buy five modern Doppler radars worth $100,000 each that would dramatically improve Pagasa?s forecasting abilities.

The radars would give the country warnings six hours ahead of typhoons, and would be able to predict the intensity of rain expected to fall within an area as small as two square kilometers.

The plan is for two of the radars to be installed next year on either seaward flank of Manila, remedying the current radar's blind spot that caused the deadly miss when tropical storm ?Ondoy? hit.