"Typhoon Engineering" in the Philippines

Here's a video of a presentation I made 2 years ago at a workshop on "Wind-Related Disaster Risk Reduction" in the Asia-Pacific region.



Please excuse my far-from-perfect delivery of the presentation; it might have something to do with my not being a native English speaker and not being around people who are fluent in English, or I was just too nervous or not well rehearsed. Nonetheless, I hope you learn a thing or two from this presentation. This was on the 3rd day of a 4-day event in Korea in 2010 that started with the 6th Workshop on Regional Harmonization of Wind Loading and Wind Environmental Specifications in Asia-Pacific Economies, or "APEC-WW" (Note: APEC-WW is not officially related to APEC). Starting tomorrow, November 12, 2012, the 7th APEC-WW will commence in Hanoi, Vietnam, with my colleagues Prof. Jaime Hernandez Jr., and Prof. Tonette Tanchuling representing the Philippines.

I don't know if you heard the 2nd question asked my way, but I was asked what things are we doing in terms of wind/typhoon engineering education in the Philippines. There were two things I learned during this presentation. Since 2005, when I started getting exposure to such international meetings, I've been somewhat hoping that someone would be interested to do wind engineering research in the Philippines, or at least fund such research. It never happened, and it never will -- at least not without benefit to those involved. If we want to improve our lives in our country, we have to do it ourselves, including funding our own work from within the country. Of course, it's usually the government or big corporations who can provide such funding that can enable research. But why would they? Is it really necessary to do research? And there goes my second realization. They don't know that they should help encourage research, particularly in wind and typhoon engineering. Because they don't know enough about it. They think people have figured it out. They don't know that it hasn't. They don't know that we can prevent any damages, injuries, or fatalities from typhoons. They don't know that it will ultimately benefit government, businesses, and citizens if we do research in typhoons. But how will they ever know if no one is teaching?

To summarize all that:
1. We need typhoon and wind engineering education in the country.
2. When government and/or big corporations know that we can prevent damages, injuries, and fatalities due to typhoons with the proper research, they will make it happen -- by providing "encouragement." Other countries, basically, have problems of their own, and they probably won't be helping us unless it's of benefit to them. We can also just wait for their research results, but then that's like a "loser" approach to things, isn't it? We can do research on our own, that is better suited to our unique situation in the Philippines, as opposed to just continuously using American and other standards -- which aren't all perfect, by the way, in case you didn't know.

Whoops, I messed up on actually summarizing the 2nd point. But I hope you guys got it. I have some ideas related to all this. Let's see what happens. Let's make things happen. Education is first and foremost.