Greg Bankoff

Constructing vulnerability: the historical, natural and social generation of flooding in metropolitan Manila.

Flooding is not a recent hazard in the Philippines but one that has occurred throughout the recorded history of the archipelago. On the one hand, it is related to a wider global ecological crisis to do with climatic change and rising sea levels but on the other hand, it is also the effect of more localised human activities. A whole range of socio-economic factors such as land use practices, living standards and policy responses are increasingly influencing the frequency of natural hazards such as floods and the corresponding occurrence of disasters. In particular, the reason why flooding has come to pose such a pervasive risk to the residents of metropolitan Manila has its basis in a complex mix of inter-relating factors that emphasise how the nature of vulnerability is constructed through the lack of mutuality between environment and human activity over time. This paper examines three aspects of this flooding: first, the importance of an historical approach in understanding how hazards are generated; second, the degree of interplay between environment and society in creating risk; and third, the manner in which vulnerability is a complex construction.

In the Eye of the Storm: The Social Construction of the Forces of Nature and the Climatic and Seismic Construction of God in the Philippines

The social construction of hazard is a matter of considerable moment to those engaged in disaster preparedness, management and relief. All too often, insufficient recognition is accorded to the manner in which peoples actions are influenced by their cultural interpretation of what they are experiencing. Behaviours that appear inappropriate or illogical to external agency or relief workers may be entirely consistent and rational actions when understood in the context of the operating schema of the individuals experiencing such phenomena.

Dangers to going it alone: social capital and the origins of community resilience in the Philippines

Robert Putnams influential article ‘Bowling alone: Americas declining social capital’ puts forward a number of possible factors to explain the decline of civil society in the USA. Many of these same forces are also at work in Americas erstwhile colony in Asia, the Philippines, where almost the opposite outcome is true if one can measure such things as social capital by the activity of formal and informal associations and networks devoted to mutual assistance. Unlike Americans, however, Filipinos are exposed to a much higher degree of everyday risk. This article traces the evolution of mutual benefit associations and networks and suggests that it is in precisely those geographical regions most exposed to personal misfortune and community danger that they proliferate most readily.

A history of poverty: The politics of natural disasters in the Philippines, 1985–95

Abstract Historians have generally been reticent in attributing any special role to natural disasters in shaping the evolution of human societies, yet there is a fundamental relationship between the history and structure of societies and its vulnerability to these events. This paper explores the relationship between environment and poverty in one such society particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, the Philippines. It argues that the extremes of wealth and power characteristic of this society are possibly the result of the frequency and magnitude of such events that exacerbate social inequalities. Specifically, the paper examines the rising incidence of natural disasters in recent decades, both globally and within the Philippines, and then assesses the effectiveness of the relief mechanisms that the latter has evolved to cope with these occurrences. Finally, the paper investigates the correlation between natural disasters and the way power and wealth are articulated in the Philippines.

“Lahat para sa lahat” (everything to everybody)

Purpose – Effective leadership at the grassroots level can make a crucial difference to disaster risk reduction (DRR) at the local level. Guidance, however, is often not provided through the visible structures of local government but through alternative means of articulating power that is no less real and frequently more effective than more formal agencies. The purpose of this paper is to present a biography of one such community leader and his influence in the Philippines and how he is able to foster resilience and reduce risk. These “small men” stand in direct contrast to the more authoritarian, materialistic and reputedly corrupt nature of governance in general. Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts an historical-sociological approach, utilising archival sources as well as fieldwork to explore the relationship between consensual leadership, social capital and DRR in the Philippines. Findings – Social capital and consensual forms of local leadership have their origin in the challenges posed by...

Crime, society, and the state in the nineteenth-century Philippines

The subject of this thesis is the nineteenth century Philippines. Its objective is twofold: to use the criminal archives to create a social perspective of town and country life during this period; and, then, to examine the role of the judicial system in Spains colonial order as it emerged in the Philippines. The thesiss structure reflects this dual objective. The first part of the thesis explores the nature of crime in nineteenth century society, the degree to which it fluctuated over time, the types of offences that were common to particular localities, and the factors that gave rise to specific criminal activities. This has been achieved by a series of comparisons: urban-rural as between Manila and the provinces; inter-urban as between various administrative sub-divisions of Manila; and inter-regional as between the two provinces of Cavite and Camarines Sur. Emphasis has been placed on the indigenous population as social protesters, economic participators and cultural initiators in society. The second part of the thesis deals with the emergence of the judicial aspects of the state during the nineteenth century. The law became increasingly codified, the courts became increasingly professionalised, enforcement became increasingly specialised and punishment became increasingly institutionalised. A concept of the state within the Philippines is proposed in which the judicial system was developed primarily as an instrument of governance and only secondarily as a mechanism of justice. Finally, the judicial role of the Church is examined from this perspective. In conclusion, it is argued that the state that emerged during the nineteenth century was the product of the interaction between indigenous society and Spanish aims to preserve the colonial order in the Philippines.

Breaking New Ground? Gifford Pinchot and the Birth of 'Empire Forestry' in the Philippines, 1900-1905

Professional forest management in the Philippines is largely attributed to the ideas and endeavours of American foresters such as Gifford Pinchot, George Ahern and Henry Graves who were instrumental in establishing the Insular Bureau of Forestry in 1900 and in passing the forestry laws of 1904 and 1905. These men, however, did not so much transfer American forest management directly to the archipelago let alone blindly implement empire forestry policies developed in other colonial settings such as British India. Instead, they pragmatically improvised new methods of forest management that were a blend of European, American and local expertise, ‘hybrid practices’ more suited to an administratively and scientifically unstable tropical setting.

Fire and Quake in the Construction of Old Manila

Manila, was one of the grandest early modern European cities in Asia, yet it was destroyed by fire and earthquake on numerous occasions. Over successive reconstructions, it evolved a style of architecture and urban planning that reconciled alien notions about space and place to local environmental realities. The city that materialised over the ensuing centuries was neither wholly European nor Asian, but a rich fusion of the two whose form and substance was ultimately determined by the twin threats of conflagration and seismic activity.

Winds of Colonisation: The Meteorological Contours of Spainʼs Imperium in the Pacific 1521-1898 1

This paper examines the relationship between prevailing weather systems and colonialism in the context of Spanish possessions in the Pacific from Magellan till the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that any historical appreciation of Hispanic colonialism and culture would be incomplete without due consideration of the role meteorological phenomena played, both at the macro-level in terms of the form and extent of empire and at the more micro-level as manifest in the daily experience of communities.

A question of breeding : Zootechny and colonial attitudes toward the tropical environment in the late nineteenth-century philippines

“The horse of these islands has arrived at such a state of degeneration,” concludes a report to the Governor-general of the Philippines in 1883, “that it is useless to think of its rejuvenation, it being much easier and more convenient to create a new breed with the importation of mares and Stallions from Spain” (Raza de Caballeria de Filipinas 1883). The debate over the colonial governments attempt to improve equine bloodlines through a selected breeding program with Arab stallions in the 1880s reveals much about changing Spanish attitudes toward nature in tropical regions. Although colonialism had endured in the Philippines since 1565, it was only in the nineteenth century that Europeans began to see themselves as maladapted to settlement in the islands. The tropics were increasingly regarded as a hostile and deleterious environment, and prolonged exposure to a hot and moist climate was blamed for the poor health of individuals and a progressive degeneration of race. Yet far from having to await the advances in bacteriology and parasitology of a new century (Anderson 1995), Spaniards displayed a growing conviction as to the efficacy of their own ability to control the natural world through an understanding of the processes of acclimatization.