Skip to main content

Can a weather bureau be sued?

Sulpicio Lines has filed suit against PAGASA for erroneous weather forecast and for ""gross negligence and incompetence" in predicting the typhoon's path.

I think this is an important suit and whatever judgement the courts may give, it will give important precedent on how legally liable are providers of scientific services. PAGASA is in the business of providing these meteorological services.

The Palace has given its full support to PAGASA.

I think the lawyers on both sides will have to deal with the word "predict". The legal profession makes money on the "meaning of words" as one SS lawyer once said it in his defence in the DeNazification trials after World War II.

This leads us with some observations. Scientists can only predict to a level of confidence and by convention that is within 5% of the real value. The lawyers will have to argue that PAGASA was within or outside the bounds of this 5%.

Perhaps the case will open the government's and the public's eyes on the importance and role of science in society.

But as one student told me, the question may be asked, Are fortune tellers and feng shui practitioners liable for false predictions?

Science and non-science practitioners. What are the legal consequences of their services?
Labels:

Comments

Deany Bocobo said…
Sulpicio Lines is doing the right thing from a defensive point of view. Everyone is piling on them, when surely we are ALL at fault, one way or the other. I think they realized the govt and the Press were doing a Meralco on them, so they've decided to push back!
5:37 PM
Ben Vallejo said…
Any idiot who has experience with lawyers would realize that if a suit is in the courts, Sulpicio Lines cannot pay damages until the suit has been decided. And given how the courts run in this country, that will be when the Sibuyan Sea has dried up!

Poor defenseless PAGASA was the likely target. But the PCG is really the best target for the suit.
6:53 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simoun's lamp has been lit, finally.. not by one but by the many!

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's  El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats,  which are when the time is right and who will in...
Post a Comment
Read more

How should we remember General Antonio Luna?

Well it seems with that proposal to rename Camp Aguinaldo to Camp Antonio Luna in time for National Heroes Day has generated a lot of social media buzz. We really have to really understand our national heroes. Antonio Luna was a remarkable personality but like all of us was flawed. He likely would be an academic had the revolution not intervened. He would have been the first Dean of a College of Science of the Philippine University had the nation made the transition to indepe ndence in a peaceful manner. That was recognized by the American College of Pharmacy when they feted Dr Luna on what would have been his 60th birthday noting his work in combating malaria. But that was not to be. He became a soldier. General Luna was for a professional military within the bounds of the constitution. Perhaps that is the biggest sign of contradiction for today. Please answer the question: Would President Duterte (or a President Aquino, Marcos, Arroyo, Quezon etc) have a General Luna as his c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Marikina River and the "janitor" fish

My newest environmental science research project is to determine the evolutionary biology of invasion by the "janitor fish" in Marikina River. Today we made our first survey and collections. Marikina River is the"greenest"in Metro Manila but that is just on the surface. One master's student is doing her thesis on biotic integrity and a volunteer MD is working on the project too. The "janitor fish (Pterygoplichthys sp) is the dominant fish now in the river,displacing traditional Marikina food fishes such as dalag and hito. The fish are collected and left to rot on the riverbanks. Despite this, there is still some subsistence fishing on the river. The highest densities of the fish are observed near sewage outfalls where they find food to eat. It is likely that the fish can be controlled if we can clean up the river! BTW the name "janitor fish" insults janitors. The fish thrive in dirty rivers and don't clean them up. Janitors on the other hand, ...
Post a Comment
Read more