The state weather bureau on Saturday branded as hoax a report that circulated on social media claiming that a supertyphoon is heading toward the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) in the next few days.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) stressed that no significant weather disturbance has been monitored by the weather agency, more so a supertyphoon.
Pagasa weather forecaster Gener Quitlong, in a radio interview over DzMM, said that according to their bulletin, they do not see any supertyphoon heading its way toward the country.
“Sa ngayon po, sa isang linggo, wala po kaming nakikita na bagyong papasok (For now, for a week, we do not see any typhoon coming),” Quitlong said.
He said the video that has been circulated on social media was an old news report.
Pagasa clarified that these rumors of supertyphoon were merely based on a 2014 CNN video report shared by netizens on social networking site Facebook.
The video report, he said, was referring to typhoon Ruby (international name: Hagupit), considered to be one of the most intense tropical cyclone of 2014, that made landfall over Eastern Samar on December 6, following Yolanda.
“Tapos na po yun, 2014 pa po yun. Pagkatapos pa ‘yan ng Yolanda (That was over, it was in 2014. That was after the Yolanda),” the weather forecaster said.
“Sa Facebook kumakalat, kasi ishe-share lang ng ishe-share, tapos may nakalagay, kapani-paniwala, kasi ang video galing CNN. Ang pagkakaalam ko, bagyong Ruby yun,” he said.
(It spread on Facebook, because it can be shared to anyone and then it says there… it appears to be true because the video came from CNN. As far as I know, that was typhoon Ruby.) /jpv
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