Through a partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) will start to send its personnel to Japan for training on earthquake, tsunami, and volcano monitoring this year.

In a press conference held during the first quarter Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill, Phivolcs Director Teresito Bacolcol said that the partnership for the Project for Capacity Development for Monitoring and Information Dissemination of Earthquake, Tsunami, and Volcano is underway.

“The project will start this year. We will send people to Japan to be trained on tsunamis and how to make the warnings for such earlier,” Bacolcol said.

A total of eight personnel will be sent to Japan for the three-year program. Five personnel will be leaving for Japan in 2025, while the remaining three will be leaving in 2026.

The Phivolcs personnel will be taking part in a three-month short-course program and a year-long masters program.

“The personnel who will be attending the short-term training will acquire focused and specific training that will improve our hazard assessment, monitoring, and warning. The personnel acquiring their master’s degree will greatly increase the number of experts in seismology and tsunami,” Karl Vincent Soriano, Planning Officer of Phivolcs, said in a Viber message.

Those taking part in the masters program are expected to depart in October 2025.

In July 2024, Phivolcs and JICA had signed a record of discussion to formally ink their partnership and to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the 1990 magnitude 7.8 Luzon Earthquake.

Phivolcs hopes that the capacity for disaster preparedness and response of disaster management authorities and stakeholders in the risk area would be enhanced through responding to the information on earthquake, tsunami, and volcanoes issued by the institution.

“Hopefully, by the end of the three years, we’ll be able to enhance our disaster preparedness,” Bacolcol added.

JICA and Phivolcs continue to coordinate on future projects, including sending Japanese experts to the Philippines to help the country improve its capacities for disaster preparedness and resilience, yet no specific timeline has been set. Yzabela Velez-White/DMS