Diosdado Macapagal and Typhoon 'Odette'

JUST before the anticipated joyous year-end merriments of 2021 were celebrated, Typhoon "Rai" entered the Philippine area of responsibility on the night of December 14. The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) named it "Odette," and while approaching the country, it unexpectedly, rapidly intensified into a Category 5 super typhoon upon its first landfall across Siargao.

Typhoon "Odette" was a powerful and catastrophic tropical cyclone that battered our country. It became the first Category 5-equivalent super typhoon to "develop in the month of December since Nock-ten in 2016, and the third Category 5 super typhoon recorded in the South China Sea, following 'Pamela' in 1954 and 'Rammasun' in 2014."