“In this picture from last October, I am standing at a monitoring station run by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), overlooking Taal volcano. Taal erupted in January 2020, and continues to expel lots of sulfur dioxide and volcanic smog.

The institute is part of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which cascades from national government down to the village level. Decisions on evacuations and school closures because of eruptions are usually made by local governments, but they ask for our advice.

We have a lot of natural disasters in the Philippines. In my division of PHIVOLCS in Quezon City, I manage a team of around 60 people from multiple disciplines.

To provide early warning of potential eruptions, we monitor the levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The provincial government found very high levels of arsenic in groundwater right after the 2020 Taal eruption, and the hospitals are still handling cases of arsenic poisoning.

I was raised in the Philippines in a poor family. I studied four years of civil engineering at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, but shifted to geology largely because my family could not afford the computing resources needed for me to complete my degree. I began my career in the oil industry, but that wasn’t for me. With PHIVOLCS, I know I’ve saved lives.

The thing I don’t like about my job is dealing with the non-science. So many people on social media say they’re experts, predicting eruptions or suggesting we are not doing our jobs properly. We also sometimes have to halt building projects because of the risk of volcanic mud flows, and that makes people angry. Responding to people online — even to psychics predicting an eruption — is part of my job and it doubles my work. I have to be a communicator, not just a scientist.”