During every typhoon, Filipinos often find themselves jumping between PAGASA advisories, LGU Facebook pages, Messenger group chats, news reports, and social media posts just to piece together what’s happening around them. A new platform called Bagyo.app aims to bring those updates into one place and is now undergoing live testing in Naga City during the 2026 typhoon season. Developed by co-founders Jared Dillinger and John Sedano, the platform combines official weather data, community reporting, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology in an effort to make disaster information more accessible, timely, and easier to verify.

Currently in its pilot phase, Bagyo.app is being tested with the SK Federation in Naga City, involving communities across the Bicol Region. Rather than positioning itself as a replacement for existing disaster agencies, the team says the platform is designed to supplement systems such as PAGASA and Project NOAH by giving communities and frontliners another layer of real-time situational awareness.

Bringing Disaster Information Into One Place

During emergencies, critical information often arrives from multiple directions. Official weather bulletins may come from PAGASA, flood advisories from local governments, road closures through Facebook posts, and rescue requests through messaging apps.

Bagyo.app attempts to consolidate these fragmented updates into a single platform. The Progressive Web App aggregates weather information from PAGASA, NASA, and the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), while allowing citizens to submit reports, photos, and videos directly from their mobile devices.

For emergency responders and volunteers, the platform also features a dashboard displaying public heat maps, livestreams, CCTV feeds, and a one-tap SOS system intended to improve situational awareness during disasters.

Adding Verification to Community Reports

One of the challenges of crowdsourced disaster reporting is ensuring the information is reliable.

To address this, Bagyo.app incorporates an artificial intelligence assistant called Aries, which helps review and verify reports before they are surfaced on the platform.

“Agent Aries… also checks reports. He also verifies if this report… is a real report,” co-founder John Sedano explained.

The platform also records verified reports on a blockchain, creating what the team describes as a permanent, tamper-evident record.

“We are also minting reports on-chain… it can’t be covered up, you can’t fake it,” Sedano said.

According to the founders, these technologies are intended to strengthen confidence in community-generated information rather than replace human decision-making.

Designed to Complement Existing Systems

Despite incorporating new technologies, the founders stress that Bagyo.app is not intended to replace government weather forecasting or disaster response agencies.

Instead, they see the platform as an additional layer that builds on existing public information while making it easier for communities to report local conditions and for responders to monitor developing situations.

“We don’t plan to replace; we want to supercharge, we want to add,” Sedano said.

That approach also opens the platform to collaboration with local governments, emergency responders, and weather experts as development continues.

Testing During an Active Typhoon Season

Unlike many technology platforms that are refined before public release, Bagyo.app is undergoing live testing during an actual typhoon season.

The founders say exposing the platform to real-world conditions is necessary to identify technical issues, improve usability, and better understand how communities interact with the system during emergencies.

For Jared Dillinger, that process depends on public participation.

“You guys, we are not perfect. We need you guys. Tell us the good, tell us the bad. Break our app. Use it.”

He added that the team welcomes feedback from ordinary citizens as well as disaster professionals to help strengthen the platform before a broader rollout.

A Different Approach to Disaster Preparedness

As extreme weather events continue to test disaster response systems across the Philippines, platforms like Bagyo.app reflect a growing effort to combine official information with real-time community reporting.

Whether the model proves effective will depend on how communities, volunteers, and frontliners use it during actual emergencies. For now, the pilot represents an opportunity to evaluate whether bringing fragmented disaster information into a single, collaborative platform can help Filipinos respond more quickly and confidently when the next storm arrives.

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