The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (, abbreviated as PAGASA , which means "hope" as in the Tagalog word pag-asa) is the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) agency of the Philippines mandated to provide protection against natural calamities and to insure the safety, well-being and economic security of all the people, and for the promotion of national progress by undertaking scientific and technological services in meteorology, hydrology, climatology, astronomy and other geophysical sciences. Created on December 8, 1972, by reorganizing the Weather Bureau, PAGASA now serves as one of the Scientific and Technological Services Institutes of the Department of Science and Technology. History The Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila Formal meteorological and astronomical services in the Philippines began in 1865 with the establishment of the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila (Manila Meteorological Observatory) in Padre Faura St., Manila when Francisco Colina, a young Jesuit scholastic and professor at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila started a systematic observation and recording of the weather two or three times a day. Jaime Nonell, another Jesuit scholastic, wrote a brief treatise on these observations, which was printed by the Diario de Manila. The treatise attracted the attention of businessmen in Manila and a request was made to the Jesuit director, Fr. Juan Vidal, SJ, for regular observations for the purpose of warning the public against approaching typhoons. The businessmen financed the procurement and acquisition of an instrument called the universal meteorograph (an invention of another Jesuit, Fr. Angelo Seechi, SJ of the Vatican Observatory in Rome) which would greatly aid in the day and night observations of the weather. In 1866, Federico Faura, SJ became the director of the observatory in recognition of his scientific abilities. During this time, the observatory was engaged in the systematic observation of Philippine weather. On July 7, 1879, after data comparison with another Jesuit cleric in the West Indies, the observatory issued a warning indicating that a tropical cyclone was crossing northern Luzon. The colonial government took every possible precaution based on the reliability of the warning and the slight losses from the typhoon finally and permanently cemented the reputation of the observatory. This was followed by a prediction in November of the same year that a tropical cyclone would pass by Manila. The observatory began conducting seismological and terrestrial magnetism observations in 1880. In 1885, the observatory started time service and a system of visual (semaphore)