ALBAY Second District Rep. Joey Salceda has filed House Bill 6921 seeking to modernize the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (DoST-Phivolcs).

The Phivolcs Modernization Act aims to enhance the capability and human resource complement of the agency to better provide timely and quality information and services for warning, disaster preparedness, and mitigation of events arising from volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunami and other related geotectonic phenomena.

'There is a need to augment and enhance the monitoring and warning capabilities of Phivolcs.'

Dr. Teresito Bacolcol, the newly appointed director of DoST-Phivolcs further explained that the country has 24 active volcanoes and 27 potentially-active volcanoes. Of the 24 active volcanoes, only 10 are currently being monitored, and only two of these 10 are equipped with all the required station types.

'There is a need to increase the density of the Institute's seismic stations to better understand future earthquake occurrences.'

Dr. Bacolcol explained that DoST-Phivolcs has also mapped numerous active faults dividing densely populated cities, and in the last 10 years, these faults have generated a total of seven major earthquakes and several strong earthquakes. Adding that many of these earthquakes are damaging. There is, therefore, a need to increase the density of the Institute's seismic stations to better understand future earthquake occurrences.