“Bagyong KANOR, papasok ng Philippine Area of Responsibility” Find out why this typhoon name was changed by PAGASA.

Recently, PAGASA renamed bagyong “KANOR” to KARDING,” something that sparked amused discussion in social media. Netizens poked fun at the possibility of naming a tropical cycone “Kanor,” even going as far as creating graphics to prove their point.

The weather bureau decided to drop the name “KANOR” because this name is linked to a “Mang Kanor,” who became notorious with his sex video scandal.

One of the rules in naming a tropical cyclone is that it must not have an offensive or negative meaning. PAGASA also wants the public to focus their attention on preparedness and not on the name of the storm.

Another notorious figure, Janet Lim Napoles, who was pinpointed as the main player in the recent Pork Barrel scam, also became a trending topic in social media when netizens suggested naming a tropical cyclone after her.

At the peak of the pork barrel issue with Janet Lim Napoles, netizens have suggested naming a tropical cyclone or “bagyo” after the controversial figure, said to have shaken up Philippine politics in typhoon-like proportions.

But such a suggestion is implausible, especially since the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or PAGASA has already finalized its list of names for tropical cyclones for the next two decades.

Once a tropical cyclone enters PAR (Philippine Area of Responsibility), a local name is immediately assigned to it to make it easier for Filipinos to remember.

In the past, only women’s names ending with ng or ing, such as Auring and Yayang were used in naming these tropical cyclones—something that some people deemed gender-biased.

This resulted to the Name a Bagyo Contest conducted nationwide with the theme Binyagan ang bagyo at manalo ng libu-libong piso! in 1999. Based on the press release of the contest, winners would receive P1,000 per typhoon name selected and a consolation prize of P500 per typhoon name for the 70 chosen auxiliary or reserved names.

The rules of criteria for the name suggestions were the following:

–       Names must not begin with letters Ñ, NG and X (may or may not end in NG)

–       Should not have more than Nine (9) letters per name

–       Should not more than Three (3) syllables per name

–       Must not have any negative or offensive meaning

–       Easy to pronounce

–       Entries must be arranged in alphabetical order according to the new Filipino alphabet

–       Names may be that of a person (male of female), place, animal, flower, plant, tree, or a trait that reflected Filipino tradition and culture

The contest gave birth to a new list of Philippine tropical cyclone names, which are being used until now. What we have in the present year are listed under column number 2. These names are repeated every four years.

According to PAGASA, an average of 19 to 20 tropical cyclones enters PAR annually, but there are also instances when the number exceeds the alphabetical list. This is where the auxiliary list comes in.

Did you know?

Names of tropical cyclones that caused enormous damage with more than 300 casualties and at least P1 billion pesos worth of destroyed properties are decommissioned. Some of the names that made a great impact and were removed from the list are “Ondoy”, Pablo” and “Yolanda”.

Source: PAGASA-DOST