2013 Christmas Accessory Wishlist

Christmas is a time of giving and is also the longest holiday in the Philippines and everyone is waiting for it. This holiday is similar to Thanksgiving where families reunite together to share experiences of the past year, catch up on each others whereabouts, and most especially, to exchange gifts among each other. As for Schadow1 Expeditions, Christmas is so far the busiest month of our adventures. As one of our co-blogger has created his own Christmas wishlist for 2013, it is also a right time to make mine. Do check it out.

Natural Hot Springs in the Philippines

During the months of December to February, the "habagat" or the northwest monsoon is being replaced by "amihan" or the northeast trade winds. The amihan is a line of cold winds from the northern extra-tropical countries of Asia that goes down to the Philippines as the northern hemisphere cools down by December and as ice melts by February. And where is the best place to hang out during this time? Well, it would be in a cozy dip on a natural hot spring.

How the Openstreetmap data for the Philippines grew over the past year (2012-2013).

This year has been the most active year for the contributors for Openstreetmap (OSM)  data in the Philippines. One of the major contributor to its growth would be due to the record-breaking updates that happened due to the humanitarian activation of the Visayas for the mapping advocates to focus on the Typhoon Haiyan stricken areas of the Philippines which led to over 1 million updates in just a week since the typhoon has struck the country. The mapping data for the Philippines has been used for the mobilization of various humanitarian missions in the country. The following is the assessment of Schadow1 Expeditions regarding the growth of the Openstreetmap data using the Routable GPS Map of the Philippines based on OSM data as the basis.

How to use OSM Data and Latest Satellite Imagery for Humanitarian Missions

I have created this article in the hope of having the rescue and humanitarian efforts use the mapping data that came from a crowdsourced project called as Openstreetmap. The Openstreetmap data in the Philippines have been updated to record-breaking levels lately due to the call for worldwide mapping advocates to focus on the areas in the Philippines stricken by Typhoon Haiyan or locally known as Yolanda. Recently, the American RedCross and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have been extensively using the data to mobilize their relief missions in the country but unfortunately, Filipinos themselves are not exploiting the data to which the beneficiary of the advocacy must have been used by Filipinos in the first place. Media exposure is another thing as local media seems to be focusing more on government inefficiencies and foreign aids while forgetting to feature the most important aspect: How to deliver efficient relief missions.

Schadow1 Expeditions Blog Reaches Its First Year

It was a year ago around 4:00 AM of this same day when I decided to tinker with Blogger and made the first post a reality. It was a time when I decided to finally get my personal experiences of the country to the public and so as to inspire others to travel the Philippines more. Back then, it was my intention to bring the experience of traveling the Philippines with a niche to bring forth the importance of mapping the country that could lead to tourism improvement and more importantly ... so that a Filipino would not be a stranger to his own motherland. What has Schadow1 Expeditions become after a year of being online?

Maps at work - Typhoon Haiyan and the Worldwide Mapping Effort

Because of the strongest typhoon in history that hit the Philippines, Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda has brought about a worldwide collective effort in assisting the battered areas of the country. A worldwide crowd-sourced initiative has been activated to map the extremely devastated areas of the country due to the storm; to which relief efforts and rescue missions have been dependent immensely while at ground zero. It all started as a single call which escalated to a series of exponential response of mapping advocates around the globe to create a highly detailed and accurate map of the storm-stricken areas in the Philippines. A map to which many of the rescue and relief operatives have been using to mobilize their mission and strike right at the heart to where the community needs it.

Super Typhoon Yolanda, the Philippines and the Mapping Advocates

MTSAT Image of Haiyan pre-landfall

Super Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda is the strongest typhoon recorded in modern history. Packing up winds of 320km/h with maximum wind gusts of up to 380km/h and having a forward velocity of 29km/h. That is the maximum state of the typhoon before it had its first ever landfall at Guiuan, Samar at exactly 5:00 AM local time (21:00 UTC) at dawn of November 8, 2013, Friday. From then, it has directed a straight swath of havoc from Eastern to Central and Western Visayas of the Philippines. The tragedy then has called for a collective effort of people with various expertise to assist on the post-disaster missions. This includes the need for an accurate map so as to distinguish areas of concern so that rescuers, and field workers may be able to do their job in clearing and rescue operations over the distraught islands that were a direct hit of the record-breaking typhoon.

Lubao Pampanga on Disaster Resiliency Map-up Training with ESSC and Openstreetmap Philippines

According to the United Nation's World Risk Index of 2011, the Philippines is ranked third of 173 nations that is most vulnerable to disasters. Yearly, the country is visited by super typhoons and monsoon carrying torrential rains; as such, flooding has been a rampant issue to which it frequently results to damage to agriculture, property and human lives. The force of nature is inevitable yet preparedness is crucial before a calamity occurs while immediate response is needed as the calamity passes. Precise actions for preparedness and rescue is the real deal when a calamity strikes; and such precision can only be attained through availability of tools that helps the local government decide to reduce the risk every time a geomorphologic event happens in a locality. And these tools are highly dependent on maps with accurate and recently updated data. Schadow1 Expeditions has heed the call and joined the project headed by Environmental Science for Social Change in collaboration with Openstreetmap Philippines in training the local government units of Lubao, Pampanga on mapping their locality.

Baclayon Church - a glimpse of a rich architectural past of the Philippines

 Constructed in 1724, the Baclayon Church of Bohol stands as the oldest church in the Philippines and was built as the first parish church of Jesuit missionaries in the Philippines. The structure is not only the religious capital of Baclayon for the Catholics but as a world heritage site for Boholanos and the Filipinos. The church is listed as one by the United Nations as a cultural importance for the Philippines. We have been to this church as part of our mapping expedition in Bohol last 2010.

Nielson Airfield - what is now an ultra urbanized business district

Nielson Field, January 1945

Have you ever wondered that 68 years ago, Nielson Airfield is the first commercial airport in Asia? Built last 1937 and has been immensely destroyed during the Battle of Manila on World War II last March 1945. Unknown to most of us, a once military and commercial airfield is now a bustling ultra urbanized city in the Philippines. 

What remains of this airfield is a solitary building which was once an air operations office in a middle of a park amidst high-rise buildings. This location is now far from being an airport.