Calamity chain
Bucana, Palawan island Philippines - April 2018
In July 2018, monsoon rains intensified by tropical cyclones hit the island of Palawan in the Philippines, causing flooding in some areas near El Nido in various barangays such as Villa Libertad, Masagana, New Ibajay and Aberawan. In the village of Bucana 3 roads were made impassable, two houses and a boat were swept away and one of the bridges on the main way was destroyed. In a few days, torrential rains caused the flooding of all the dwellings and the entire population was evacuated. After weather conditions got better, the inhabitants returned to Bucana, and they are now trying to restore their houses and their boats. They provide for the removal of fallen trees and the clearing of other debris to make the roads passable. They take up their housework again , they restart their business some as fishermen, some as tourist guides among the islands of the renowned beaches of El Nido. Due to its location, Philippines is one of the countries in the world at highest risk for natural disasters. Here, a huge number of typhoons, tropical storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters have always caused deaths and incalculable damage and in some areas Filipino people are repeatedly confronted with devastation and reconstructive reaction. However, Western reports sometimes seem to underestimate the specific context of repetitiveness lived by certain communities. The accounts of the dramatic situations that locals inevitably put up with, generally strike the western reader because they represent events far from his experience and his idea of danger and tragedy. What appears from the outside as a history of dramas and reactions, in Bucana it’s rather an existential context where destruction and reconstruction shape survival strategies, customs, expectations for the future and the concepts of life and death.
Coexistence with risk has shaped Bucana local culture, but it doesn’t reduce the complexity of the disastrous events effects. Coming out unscathed from natural catastrofies can lead to an illusion of collective invulnerability, a paradoxical optimism, that let some members of the community minimize the need to get prepared for an imminent disaster. In other cases, the perception of recurring risk, on the contrary, generates a sense of predestination for the end that can lead some subjects to abandon any sense of self safeguard.
Reality that shaped the culture of these communities, has been forged by the territory prone to extreme natural events, but it is also based on historical reasons. The differentiation of the society on the basis of riskiness contexts has conditioned economic investments and choices on sedentary settlements placement; urban planners reserved the higher lands for the middle and upper classes, and left the riskier lowlands for the lower classes. Risk has been distributed unevenly among citizens, influencing global perception of danger.
Cultural, socioeconomic and political factors have historically maintained inequalities between communities that belong to different social classes. A disparity that is also reflected in the management of the emergency caused by natural disasters. The involvement of insufficient expertise and the absence of funds for the implementation of adequate measures, as for instance the creation of a suitable architecture, the ability of saving emergency assets or access to financial means. Lack of home insurance, which in case of damage or destruction sustains much of the economic loss of the victims of a disaster. Some examples that explain how inequalities are preserved, although states and NGOs mobilize in the most critical moments of emergencies. Enduring disparity of means and resources impedes improvement of these communities conditions.
One of the local sailors said: “During typhoon we receive a lot of help. I have never eaten as much as when we were taken away from our village. Last Friday they said the water came up to the waist, but here we are always in dire straits. "
Our "Westerners" perception focuses on front-page news about catastrophes of ineluctable nature, yet real disaster for these communities remains poverty.
