MANILA, Philippines ? Employees of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration called on the Aquino government on Friday to grant them additional benefits or risk losing more experienced weathermen to lucrative job offers abroad.

In a statement, the Philippine Weathermen Employees Association (PWEA), Pagasa?s employee union, said the granting of additional benefits for employees should go hand-in-hand with the upgrade of the state weather bureau?s facilities.

PWEA president Ramon Agustin said the immediate granting of allowable benefits to Pagasa personnel may serve as incentive for them not to leave.

He pointed out that the law allowed hazard pay of 30 percent from the employer?s monthly basic salary. But Bautista said employees in Pagasa get hazard pay equivalent to only 15 percent of their regular compensation.

Also, Agustin said that in the last three years, their Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) granted employees a measly P5,000 signing incentive. In other government agencies, employees usually receive P20,000 or more per year.

?These disparities are factors for personnel to contemplate seeking greener pastures abroad,? he said.

Agustin said the Pagasa management has been supportive of calls to increase their benefits but was hampered by existing guidelines on the granting of immediate benefits.

?We only wanted to get what other agencies get,? he said.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported recently that a total of 24 experienced weathermen from Pagasa left for high-paying jobs abroad in the last 10 years.

In an effort to address the brain drain, the partylist group AGHAM has advocated the exemption of Pagasa employees from the government?s Salary Standardization Law, which would in effect allow the government to grant them higher salaries. The party said a college course on meteorology should also be established to develop a local pool of weather forecasters.

After Typhoon ?Basyang? (international codename: Conson) swept through Metro Manila, President Benigno Aquino III criticized Pagasa officials for failing to forecast the path of the storm accurately. He asked Pagasa officials led by Administrator Prisco Nilo to submit a list of possible equipment upgrades to improve weather forecasting.

Agustin also said the union also welcomed calls for the modernization of PAGASA facilities and equipment.

?The lack of modern equipment has been partly blamed for perceived inaccurate weather forecasts and warnings,? he said.

Agustin added that the agency had drawn up a modernization master plan ?but [this] has been put on hold for decades due to budgetary constraints.?