MANILA, Philippines - With memories of the many deaths and massive destruction wreaked by supertyphoon “Reming” a year ago, residents of the Bicol region meekly trooped to evacuation centers and began storming heaven as “Mina” threatened late last week. The typhoon, packing center winds of 175 kilometers per hour and gusting up to 215 kilometers per hour, was going to rip through the Bicol Peninsula later in the week before exiting through Mindoro Island, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said. By Friday, the evacuees had swelled to several hundred thousands, with Albay alone targeting the evacuation of up to 650,000 people. The next day, most of them began streaming back home, as the threat had passed.

What happened? Answered prayers, many Bicol residents said, recalling how people in the region swamped radio stations with messages urging prayers. Priests noted that attendance at Masses grew as “Mina” was reported to be approaching closer. When the typhoon changed course and spared Bicol, one priest said it was “sort of a miracle.”

Who is to knock the power of prayer? Maybe, it was indeed a miracle, given the certainty with which PAGASA was tracking the path of the typhoon. But in this instance, it seems that the hand ordering the winds to take a different direction was more visible from afar than from here.

By late Friday afternoon, CNN was already reporting that “Mitag” (the typhoon’s international code name) had changed direction and was heading for central and northern Luzon. However, PAGASA was still saying “Mina” was keeping to its westward path and bearing hard on Bicol. It was not until early Saturday morning that the local weather bureau announced that the typhoon would make landfall in the vicinity of Aurora or Isabela province.

The time lag is important, even critical. Had the typhoon moved at a faster pace, Aurora, Isabela, Cagayan and other provinces hit by “Mina” would have been caught unprepared, and who knows how many lives would have been lost because of it.

Was CNN right and PAGASA wrong? Science and Technology Undersecretary Graciano Yumul asked the question and answered it himself, saying not at all. Yumul recalled that as early as Thursday, PAGASA was seeing two possible paths for “Mina,” one cutting through Bicol and another through Aurora and Isabela. He said PAGASA had studied various climate models from other weather centers in Japan, Hong Kong and the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Hawaii. But as far as the Philippines is concerned, it is only PAGASA’s forecast that is official and accountable. “PAGASA had to make a stand,” he said. “Our stand -- that the storm would track a western direction -- was based on available information.”

Obviously, PAGASA called it wrong, and all the gobbledygook mentioned by Yumul cannot make it right. Yumul said foreign weather centers use mathematical models in predicting the path of typhoons, while PAGASA uses “not only numerical but also real-time field station data.” The implication apparently is that PAGASA’s system is better and more reliable. So how come JTWC, which is CNN’s source, called it right early on, and PAGASA did not? Instead of explaining how something wrong can be correct, Yumul and PAGASA officials ought to examine where it went wrong.

Although the people of Bicol were only too happy to see that PAGASA was wrong, the wrong information cost some Bicol provinces money it could ill afford to spend unnecessarily. The province of Albay, for instance, spent P14 million to take thousands of its citizens out of harm’s way and feed them, said Gov. Jose Ma. Salceda. Although that amount cannot be said to have been spent badly, some of it could have been saved if PAGASA’s forecast was a little better. Besides, a few more mistakes like this, and the government could sound like the boy who cried wolf too often, making it more difficult to convince people to suffer the inconvenience of relocation.

The country was quite lucky Mina did not turn out to be as destructive as earlier feared. But there will surely be other more powerful typhoons -- if not this year, then in the coming years. Preparedness is essential for human survival, and that depends on accurate weather forecasts. Calamities should not test a people’s faith -- whether in God or in science.