The project entails the installation of monitoring machines to measure and read air quality data and translate them into air quality indices for transmittal to designated partners—hospitals, schools, broadcast and print organizations, and social media—for real time dissemination to their target publics. Also to be transmitted are precautionary advisories on what to do whenever the situation takes a turn for the worse.The system comes with an app that allows the public to access air index readings on their mobile phones and tablets, and be accordingly guided. This is covered by an agreement with the University of the Philippines and its Institute of Environment Science and Meteorology, the entity charged to ensure data accuracy and the integrity of the system.

 

Monitoring stations are now operating in four places in the metro (as of December 2016) where air quality is compromised—Ayala Avenue in the Makati Central Business District, Edsa in Quezon City, the UST Campus on Espana Blvd., Manila, and in a data-sharing arrangement, the Lung Center in Quezon City.

The AQMS, which crowns the projects on its milestone year, is the Club’s way of pushing government officials at both local and national levels to accelerate the implementation of the Clean Air Act which was passed in 1999 but has languished in limbo for far too long.