Damage left by Typhoon Haiyan (Source AP)

In 2013, one of the biggest typhoons in history hit the Philippines. Super Typhoon Haiyan, referred to as Yolanda in the Philippines, brought 300 km/hr winds and storm surges of up to 4 meters. The storm affected 60 million Philippinos, killing 6,000, and hit the island of Eastern Visayas the hardest. Haiyan was the 24th storm to slam the country that year. It was by far the most deadly. 

As Haiyan tore through the Philippines, the destruction it left behind was unparalleled. The storm leveled entire communities within its path. For those right along the coast, storm surges completely submerged them in water. The millions forced to relocate were then left in dire need of resources. These resources came from the efforts of the government and outside aid providers. 

In the wake of the storm, the government of the Philippines received praise for its resilience and approach to rebuilding after such devastation. In the seven years following the typhoon, studies have assessed the work of the government and its approach to resilience. Though the Philippines has been struck by countless storms since 2013, the scale and impact of this storm, allows for in depth criticism on the government response and what it means for the Philippines today.

 A study released in 2017 by Researcher Colin Walch who specialized in disaster risk reduction, goes further in depth into the structural issues that the Philippines faced when recovering from Haiyan. Walch argues that talks of resilience at the national level do not translate to results for vulnerable populations. The government had well developed risk management strategies and a risk aware environment due to the country’s vulnerability. However, the scale of the damage and issues in implementation inhibited their resilience. Policies were focused on technical aspects of resilience and not the root causes of the issues the country was facing. These issues lay in social inequality and land ownership. 

 The Philippines has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world and it shows through the implementation of its recovery policy. Easter Visayas experienced delays in receiving aid due to the island’s difficult terrain and internal conflicts between the local government and the national government. Delays in aid disproportionately affect lower income populations. Many of those impacted were those that weren’t land owners living in informal settlements. These settlements were often in high-risk areas and these populations were slower to recover.   

Diving into the topic of income equality from the angle of housing recovery, architect and researcher, Ivette Arryo examines and critiques the government response to super typhoon Haiyan through the housing recovery effort in her 2019 study. Arroyo focuses on the intentions of  housing recovery, its implementation, and what factors were holding those efforts back. In the aftermath of Haiyan, the goal was to create permanent housing structures to relocate at-risk communities. 

The government hit roadblocks in this effort. When it came time to rebuild and relocate populations to safer places, this process was slowed because the government did not have enough land to relocate the amount of people that needed housing. The government lacked legal title to land due to private ownership. In some cases, what land they could use had inadequate infrastructure. Private landowners, which consisted of the elite class, have both economic and political power, resulting in policies that favor the middle and upper classes and leave lower classes out cold.

 This lack of land in safe areas led to low amounts of permanent housing and a replication of what made communities vulnerable to prior disasters. The most vulnerable communities were still at risk because they could not afford to move from where they were.

 While the wealthier populations were quick to recover, the most vulnerable had a slower recovery process. True resilience does not come until the most vulnerable populations are resilient. This calls into question what we mean when we say climate resiliency. Climate resilience is the ability to recover or “bounce back” from the effects of climate change. We have to ask ourselves if we consider the ability to bounce back from storm after storm from the perspective of the privileged, or if it takes into account everybody. I hope it’s the latter.

 As the climate changes, cases like The Philippines will become more common, and we need to take the criticisms of the approach to disaster relief  and apply it broadly. Especially as income inequality begins to rise around the world and poor communities will become increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. While the Philippines may have had a better relief outcome than other cyclone disasters, it should not be the standard, we should continue to strive to be better.