Manila, Feb. 4 -- The Commission on Appointments (CA) on Tuesday deferred deliberations on the ad interim appointment of Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) Director General Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. as lawmakers expressed frustration over the agency's handling of climate risk data.

CA Majority Leader Rep. Elray Villafuerte criticized PhilSA for not directly sharing crucial satellite data with local government units (LGUs), particularly those at risk of severe flooding due to the La Nina phenomenon.

"If those provinces experience floods and there are casualties, you should be indirectly responsible for not sharing that data," Villafuerte said during the hearing.

"You have the data, yet you are not proactively distributing it to LGUs, which...