By Manny Mogato

MANILA, May 27 (Reuters) - The Philippines needs more public investment in radar and other systems that could track storms and natural calamities and provide more effective early warning, the head of the Senate committee on national defence said on Tuesday.

Rodolfo Biazon, who is leading a hearing on disaster preparedness, said he was unsure of the government's ability to cope with powerful typhoons and earthquakes similar to those that hit China and Myanmar this month.

"After our public hearing on Monday, I am not quite satisfied with how prepared our country is to prevent or mitigate catastrophic events brought by super typhoons, quakes and volcanic eruptions," Biazon told Reuters.

"There are four R's in disaster management and I want to focus more on readiness, on how our government agencies could issue timely warnings and cushion the impact of typhoons, quakes and volcanic eruptions."

Around 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, destroying property and crops and killing hundreds in landslides and floods.

Last week, nearly 60 people were killed and about 4 billion pesos in property, crops and fisheries were destroyed when storm Halong battered the northern provinces in the Philippines' main island of Luzon before heading to southern Japan.

Biazon said the government must acquire modern scientific equipment, including a Doppler radar system that could help the weather bureau track and monitor typhoons more efficiently.

"We can't accurately predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but there could be equipment available to help our seismologists and vulcanologists issue early warnings to lessen death and destruction," Biazon, a retired general, said.

On Tuesday, the weather bureau said it was expecting more frequent and stronger typhoons in the months ahead due to the La Nina weather pattern.

Renato Solidum, the government's chief vulcanologist, said nearly 40 percent of residential houses in the sprawling Manila region, home to about 12 million people, would be vulnerable in case of a major earthquake.

But he said he was not worried about high-rise apartments and office towers in Manila's financial district because these were built in accordance to a strict building code and were relatively quake-resistant.

About 1,600 people were killed and billions of pesos worth of property and infrastructure were destroyed when a 7.8 magnitude quake struck the northern part of the country's main Luzon island in July 1990, the last major earthquake.

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; editing by Carmel Crimmins and Sanjeev Miglani)

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