Banico14

Column: Moving Forward
By Albert Banico
Title: Why Invest in the Disaster-Prone Areas?

Like all vulnerable groups, significant portion of Filipinos is simply unable to move out from one place to another – not only because of poverty and/or lack of space elsewhere, but also because of investments they already made in their long valued locality.

Whether they are in the active-risky volcano driven area, island barangay, coastlines where ocean and typhoon surge are most expected, rivers in the rural and urban poor setting, or landslide prone localities where mining is actively taking place, moving on is not an easy way. In such cases, emotional and financial investments are valued, and together they create socio-cultural conditions that render them unable to move during actual or ongoing disasters.

Safe spaces are not necessarily scarce but are inaccessible and expensive for the local people with limited income living in disaster prone areas. For that matter, a risk area becomes a utopian settlement for the poor. Their investment priority is to build their homes in that place. Little economic activities thrive such as planting root crops and coconut; domestication of a few animals like chicken and pigs. Coupled with the “good” family memories make it difficult for them to respond immediately to the calls of evacuating the risky areas. In a way, the investment itself is a tested risk and the introduction of a new risk (such as migrating to unknown areas) is considered riskier.

There is an observation that Filipinos often improvise and make productive and innovative use of whatever is available. These qualities have been repeatedly demonstrated in their capacity to adapt to live in any part of the world and in their ability to accept any change (Okamura & Agbayani, 1991).

However, this observation is supported by the so called Filipino faith related to the concept of bahala na (“It’s up to God” or “Leave it to God”), which has tended to be incorrectly equated with an expression of fatalism and a passive acceptance or resignation to fate. Bahala na can instead be viewed more positively as determination in the face of uncertainty or stressful, problematic conditions. Although it is an indication of an acceptance of the nature of things, including one’s own inherent limitations, bahala na operates psychologically to elevate one’s courage and conviction to persist in the face of adversity and to improve one’s situation (Enriquez, 1987; Okamura & Agbayani, 1991).

On the other hand, the fatalists among the poor and the vulnerable refuse to move not only because of their inability to adapt their life in safer ground but also because they put everything to risk in a disaster prone area. And since there are no options left for them, it is right to address these kinds of circumstances where social mobility of people is limited horizontally and vertically. This leads them to restrict their response to disaster and become fatalistic in the end. I understand that this is based on the case of a developing country and similar localities but it is worth looking at developed countries.

Looking at cases where people thrive in places like Benguet and Compostela Valley, experts will always ask why people continue to persist despite of the serious warnings by authorities. Residents and victims alike go back or continue to stay possibly because of an assumption that they are already adapted to the disastrous conditions and experiencing it all their life.

In case of the developers that purchased land near or within a risk area, people who purchased such property are victims of future catastrophic time bomb, because risk maps and information are not available to the public.

Mr. Banico is one of the Founding Board Members and Advocacy Directors of GREEN RESEARCH Environmental Research Group. He is also a founding board member of the Asian Research Center on Climate Change.