Lenten travelers warned

Critical areas, Metro Manila

Pagasa’s forecast track showed that the critical areas expected to bear the brunt of the typhoon were Aurora, Nueva Vizcaya, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Zambales and Quezon provinces.

The surrounding provinces, including Metro Manila, will also be affected.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos have already begun traveling to the provinces and popular tourist spots before public holidays begin on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin urged travelers to follow weather bulletins, but did not give a categorical travel advice whether to cancel their plans.

“We will feel the [effects of the] typhoon by Friday evening through Saturday and Sunday, when [people will be] on their way back [from the provinces],” Gazmin said in a news briefing at the NDRRMC on Wednesday.

Bookings canceled

He advised travelers to “make necessary adjustments and at the same time continue to monitor the weather forecasts.”

People, who earlier planned to visit Baguio City, which along with the rest of northern Luzon is on the path of Chedeng, have already made adjustments.

Hotels in the summer capital reported an increase in cancellation of room reservations at the start of Holy Week. More cancellations are expected Thursday and Friday owing to the incoming typhoon and reports of traffic jams in the city due to simultaneous road projects.

Anthony de Leon, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association in Baguio, announced the canceled bookings at a news conference. “[O]ne booked room that is lost in one night is gone forever,” he said.

Some cancellations made early in the week were attributed to the incoming typhoon, but most appeared to be reactions to the traffic jams created by simultaneous road works, according to De Leon.

Chedeng was moving northwest and was about 1,220 km from the eastern town of Guiuan in Samar early Wednesday.

READ: ‘Maysak’ slightly weakens, heads for Isabela-Aurora

Category 5

The typhoon, currently a category five storm—the highest rating—is hovering over the Pacific Ocean with winds gusting as high as 250 km per hour.

Pagasa said the typhoon would affect the eastern coast of Luzon starting tomorrow. It will make landfall sometime late Saturday or early Sunday somewhere in Isabela, Aurora or Quezon and then cross northern and central Luzon from Monday to Tuesday.