Volume 11 | Issue 43 | Number 3 | Article ID 4018 | Oct 21, 2013 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Focus

A Tale of Two Decades: Typhoons and Floods, and the Provinces, and the Marcos Years 台風と水害、マニラと地方〜 マ ルコス政権二〇年の物語

James F. Warren

The typhoons and floods that occurred in the Marcos years were labelled ‘natural disasters’ Background: Meteorology by the authorities in Manila. But in fact, it would have been more appropriate to label In the second half of the twentieth century, them un-natural, or man-made disasters typhoon-triggered floods affected all sectors of because of the nature of politics in those society in the , but none more so unsettling years. The typhoons and floods of than the urban poor, particularly theesteros - the 1970s and 1980s, which took a huge toll in dwellers or shanty-town inhabitants, residing in lives and left behind an enormous trail of the low-lying locales of Manila and a number of physical destruction and other impacts after other cities on and the . The the waters receded, were caused as much by growing number of post-war urban poor in the interactive nature of politics with the Manila, City and elsewhere, was largely environment, as by geography and the due to the policy repercussions of rapid typhoons per se, as the principal cause of economic growth and impoverishment under natural calamity. The increasingly variable 1 the military-led Marcos regime. At this time in nature of the weather and climate was a the early 1970s, rural poverty andcatalyst, but not the sole determinant of the environmental devastation increased rapidly, destruction and hidden hazards that could and on a hitherto unknown scale in the linger for years in the aftermath of the Philippines. Widespread corruption, crony typhoons and floods in the Marcos years.3 capitalism and deforesting the archipelago Habibul Haque Khondker notes in his caused large-scale forced migration,examination of the relationship between the homelessness and a radically skewedgreat November cyclone of 1970, in the distribution of income and assets thatBangladesh case, and the subsequent political continued to favour elite interests.2 crisis, that the political environment and a natural disaster can, and often do, interact with The tai fung, the great wind or typhoon, has one another.4 also been the scourge of Japan for centuries. Traditionally, typhoons, along with floods and Nowhere was this link between politics and famines, have played a major role in Japanese calamity more evident than in flood-stricken statecraft as signs of the gods’ displeasure with Manila throughout the 1970s and early 1980s current political leadership, and sometimes when , in her capacity as Metro resulting in sudden political change and Manila Governor, was in charge. It was against upheaval. From the end of the nineteenth a background of physical devastation and century the cost of damage caused by these flooding in July 1972 caused by Typhoon tropical storms escalated as JapaneseGloring, that a 500 million pesos Calamity Fund development and industrialisation increased. Bill was eventually passed through the

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Philippine House of Representatives and uncertainty, the threat of rebellion in the Senate. No one knew exactly when the next countryside and possible succession in extreme typhoon or flood would hit the capital . Marcos launched a radical new and create a national disaster on economic and social agenda under the provisions of martial humanitarian grounds. But once the Calamity law. He established new government structures Fund Bill was law, the President, his First lady and agencies, abolished others previously and their party would control and manipulate responsible for planning and execution of the use of the 500 million pesos relief fund economic functions, and implemented a primarily for their political purposes and revolutionary social welfare programme aimed personal self interest. The bloated emergency at restructuring society. In 1972, he also relief fund would enable them not only to pay introduced a strategy of balanced economic serious attention to the handling of future growth and a genuine agrarian reform typhoon crises but also to win political support programme. His ‘new society’ was to be based and elections in the process too. Indeed, from a on an innovative system of government that purely political standpoint, Ferdinand and would respond to the needs of ordinary people, Imelda Marcos and their political backers were which he called ‘constitutional 5 the prime beneficiaries of the Calamity Fund authoritarianism’. measure.

Background: The Marcos Years

This paper examines the impact of typhoons, which cause floods resulting in widespread death and damage, as a key political aspect in the thinking and administration of the Marcos government. The impact of a typhoon-related natural disaster on Philippine society and politics in the 1970s depended upon two sets of factors: namely, the political and material capacity of the government to react to the disaster and the relevant aspects of the political culture. These include: the extent to which the responsibility of preparing for and Figure 1. Famous photograph of the late dealing with a disaster is specific and Philippine President Marcos declaring understood; the citizen’s previous perceptions martial law (21 September 1972). of the government and the degree to which they change their perceptions; and the extent Source. Robert JA Basilio Jr, ‘Five things to which a natural disaster is considered to Donald Draper and have in have a legitimate political value. common,’ Jack The Scribbler (9 September 2012), online: On 21 September 1972, several months after http://jackthescribbler.com/2010/01/five-things- the enormous tragedy called Typhoon Gloring donald-draper-and-ferdinand-marcos-have-in- had swept across the archipelago, President common/, accessed 14 August 2013. Marcos, who had been elected in 1965, and re- elected in 1969, declared martial law. He acted not specifically because of the typhoon, but Marcos, however, was unsuccessful in curbing rather because of widespread economicthe widespread political influence and activity

2 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF of the old economic oligarchs, who skilfully Source. Maytpapa, ‘A Childhood in the Time of survived Marcos’ onslaught to reform ‘the sick Martial Law, Society Magazine (22 September old society’.6 The new society was meant to 2011), online: redistribute wealth and property, but the old http://en.paperblog.com/a-childhood-in-the-time oligarchs soon joined forces with others who -of-martial-law-69557/, accessed 14 August had gained access to the levers of economic 2012. power as a direct consequence of the new society. By the mid-1970s, the politics of the transition from the old to the new society was As ‘the overcentralised government under to prove far more difficult and complex than military rule began to atrophy,’ David Ferdinand Marcos had anticipated and his Timbermann explains that ‘favouritism and authoritarian rule served to both intensify ‘the veniality became rampant’ and the economy increasingly negative impact of clientelism’7 was adversely affected by ‘mounting corruption 10 and constrain the ‘beneficial effects of foreign and mismanagement.’ Amelia P. Varela claims loans and aid on the community.’8 Indeed, that both ‘graft and corruption reached its all Cheng-tian Kuo suggests that ‘foreign loans time high [and] permeated most aspects of have been regarded by political leaders as easy bureaucratic life and institutions which saw the 11 money for rewarding their clients.’9 start of the systematic plunder of the country.’ Indeed, under Marcos, both corruption and money laundering formed a ‘symbiotic relationship,’12 that was reliant on the Marcos government retaining power. Typhoon-based disasters gave his administration ample opportunity to both tout for political supremacy at the expense of the opposition and to add to his mounting personal wealth.

In the post-war period, the Philippines experienced high rates of population growth and a level of rural-urban migration of five per cent persisted throughout the 1960s. The reluctance and/or inability of the landed elite to remedy serious social and economic problems in the provinces, so evident in the failure of agrarian reform, led to ever-higher levels of rural-urban migration, especially to Manila. The population of the archipelago grew from eleven million in 1948 to 27 million in 1960 and to almost 37 million by 1970; by then one third of the population, which had almost doubled in less than a quarter of a century, was concentrated in Manila and nine adjoining provinces on Luzon.13 This exacerbated the already long-standing socio-economic Figure 2. Sunday Express front page after marginalisation of the masses. Marcos declared martial law (September 1972). In Manila, migrants were largely absorbed into

3 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF various low-income service occupations. The struggled to cope with its consequences. But majority of these new urbanites in the early the government-sponsored promotion of the 1970s belonged to Manila’s lower class, or remarkable transformation of the city, from a slum society. They generally lacked technical previously alarming and deteriorating place to skills and took up occupations as domestic a vibrant, expanding metropole proved a cruel servants, labourers, hawkers, jeepney drivers, illusion—a false dream—for the tens of entertainers, or prostitutes and they filled thousands of squatters confronting the problem minor clerical positions and owned virtually no of a lack of housing and related health impacts, residential property in the city.14 in one of the third world’s fastest growing cities. Most of the comfortably-housed wealthy The exponential growth of the population and locals and foreign visitors rarely went the rate of rural-urban migration exerted added anywhere near the burgeoning slum quarters of pressure upon an already inadequate public the city. But ’s tree-lined avenues and sanitation system and thereby increased health glass-lined skyscrapers cast shadows across the hazards, especially the possible outbreak of makeshift houses of squatters from rural areas diarrheal diseases due to storm-relatedliving at overcrowded addresses that did not flooding. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos would appear in information provided on attempt to establish local programs for public recommended tours and general guide maps. sanitation and health (refuse, litter, water and The migrants from the provinces threatened sewage pollution) to transform Manila into a with homelessness dwelled out of sight of the clean and beautiful city that would attract path of the capital’s crushing progress, but tourism and trans-national capital. Besides they lived within its interstices and in construction of world-class hotels, convention vulnerable areas; low-lying neighbourhoods and cultural centres, they established some often sited directly in the path of typhoons and well-equipped hospitals and clinics staffed with prone to flooding. skilled physicians and nurses. Chain drug stores were also located in strategic places near the hospitals, schools, shopping malls and heavy-commuting areas. But, the nameless and faceless urban poor, who lived in their thousands in squatter communities along the esteros, were not part of the Marcos campaign and programs to embellish the face of Manila.

There was a cruel contradiction, albeit irony, between the generally clean, quiet and orderly atmosphere proclaimed in travel guides, tour advertisements and billboards, depicting Manila as a global city where economic progress went hand in hand with the developing social reality of a burgeoning rural- Figure 3. Marginal urban enclave of Siteo urban migrant population. Many of the globe- Baseco, Tondo. trotting tourists and overseas executives visiting the city’s business district were not Source. Online: fully aware of the scope and rate of the adverse http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/3738095867 changes that were taking place in Manila, as _81ec1e7611.jpg, accessed 14 August 2013; the metropolis rapidly grew and poor people cited in Doracie B. Zoleta‐Nantes, ‘Disasters

4 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF and megacities: critical geographies of flood 1976 16–27 May Didang hazards & social inequities in the case of Metro 1978 9 October Yaning Manila,’ seminar paper 716.pdf (Canberra: 1984 August June Crawford School, College of Asia and the 1984 September Ike Pacific, the Australian National University, n.d.). Table 1. List of typhoons in the 1970s and 1980s that caused

Storms: A Chronology: 1970s–1980s chaos across the archipelago during the presidency of Marcos. Here, I want to examine the interactive relationship between the spate of typhoons and By the early 1980s, the economic and social floods in the 1970s and earlyimpacts of typhoons added to the mounting 1980s—particularly Typhoon Gloring—and the political pressure against the increasingly nature of politics and the subsequent political beleaguered government of Ferdinand Marcos. crises, and, how the political environment and Two typhoons, in August and September 1984, a natural disaster can interact with one unleashed the worst calamities to hit the 15 another. The typhoons of the 1970s caused archipelago in fourteen years. , chaos across the archipelago, cutting power which hit the northern Philippines in late lines, disrupting trade and transport and August, and , which lashed a wide displacing hundreds of thousands of people. In area of the central and southern Philippines a the early 1970s, the Philippines received its few days later, killed 1556 people, injured more strongest warning yet that shifts in climate and than one thousand and left more than 1500 weather patterns were creating the likelihood missing.16 In its rampage across the southern of a turbulent future of more intense storms Philippines, Typhoon Ike left 200,000 homeless and devastating floods with mass destruction as houses were either flattened or blown away and displacement. The warnings began when by high winds or destroyed by floods. Schools Typhoon Meding crossed Luzon on Monday were similarly affected. Although the officially morning, 31 August 1970. It rained for almost a confirmed death toll on 4 September was 332, week after which greater Manila, and central the Mayor of Surigao, Constantino Navarro, and southern Luzon were under water for stated that one thousand people had been weeks. Less than three months later, Typhoon killed in his city alone. He told reporters that Yoling hit Manila on 19 November 1970. the city had run out of coffins and embalming However, when Typhoon Gloring devastated fluid and had to bury the dead in mass graves Luzon between 10 and 25 July 1972, the entire in an effort to prevent the spread of disease.17 nation was struck by the tragedy. Typhoon Norming, struck between 15 and 16 August It is set against this background of President 1974, and Typhoon Didang, came alongMarcos attempting to radically transform the between 16 and 27 May 1976 and yet again political system after 1972 that could Manila was flooded. Typhoon Yaning hit central not afford to think about the climate and recent Luzon on 9 October 1978 (see Table 1). weather phenomena as necessarily unchanging or ‘normal’. The weather, like politics, was Year Date Typhoon susceptible to change. Marcos and the 1970 31 August Meding personnel of the Philippine Weather Bureau, 1970 19 November Yoling particularly Dr. Ramon Kintanar, its youthful, 1972 10–25 July Gloring articulate director, were to painfully learn that 1974 15–16 August Norming the weather of the 1970s was not typical of the

5 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF previous fifty years—and its patterns were even The typhoons and floods of the 1970s brought less typical of the previous several centuries. In the national ‘quick-fix’ relief aid syndrome to fact, climate and weather throughout the 1970s Manila and right to the sometime-flooded proved to be more variable and unpredictable doorsteps of the seat of power at Malacanang than that of the decades just prior to 1970, to Palace. The Marcos regime, from a purely further complicate matters. political standpoint, could only think about short-term effects, rather than thinking and Weather services had been neglected by a operating on longer-term environmental scales succession of post-war governments so the in dealing with urban flooding as a serious and Bureau could not initiate development projects, growing development challenge for Manila. purchase new equipment or hire more trained personnel.18 However, on 8 December 1972, At the height of Typhoon Gloring, Ferdinand President Marcos, now all too painfully aware and Imelda Marcos blamed a particular sector of the tremendous importance of the weather of the urban poor for not having a basic human services and allied seismological andasset, namely shelter and a bit of land to till. astronomical activities to national development, They had failed to solve the long and troubled passed an act abolishing the Weather Bureau history of agrarian land reform and in their and in its place, established the Philippine attempts remake society from the bottom up Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical blamed some of the desperate peasants Services and Administration (PAGASA). The arriving in Manila, seeking a safe roof over PAGASA was entrusted with ‘providingtheir heads and good fortune. The massive environmental protection and utilisinginflux of landless, destitute migrants to Manila scientific knowledge as an effective instrument and the proliferation of shanty-town to ensure the safety, well-being and economic developments had led to canals and water- security of all the people, and for the promotion catchment areas being swallowed up and built of national progress.’19 Most importantly, on by the urban poor. Marcos blamed the administrative control of the agency was incessant storm-related flooding on garbage in transferred from the Department of Commerce the choked esteros and swollen creeks blocking and Industry to the Department of National the city’s sewers. He appealed to the urban Defence. poor not to clog up the canals and sewage systems with their refuse. But, in reality, the Both Kintanar and Marcos hoped that the social and environmental impacts of the coming years would prove truly remarkable for Typhoon Gloring floods in Manila were a the scientific and technological development of microcosm of a much larger national problem. meteorology and reliable operationalThere was not adequate affordable housing and forecasting across the islands. As part of the employment for the displaced migrant poor Marcos government’s high modernist project, from the provinces. Hence, they built their PAGASA had gone digital and meteorological houses and shacks out of necessity in a pell- scientists would use satellite transmissions and mell manner without concern for degrading the sophisticated computer models to study and surrounding environment—an environment ‘tame’ the typhoon. PAGASA began towhere regulation had been equally ignored by undertake a broad-risk mapping of typhoons the kingpins of the construction industry, the and flood-prone areas began to beprincipal real-estate speculators and the identified—based on topography and historical industrial strongmen who ran the local rainfall patterns.20 factories with complete disregard for ’s environment, but especially for the Storms and Floods: Impact River, irrigated rice paddies and water

6 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF catchment areas. These economically powerful sited on low-lying land, generally below sea groups, far more so than the poor migrants level, and the fetid streets were prone to from rural areas, were creating ever larger flooding. At the same time, some firms and ‘ecological footprints’ around Manila which factories were simply dumping untreated waste were not, in the long run, sustainable. Marcos into nearby water systems; the very same certainly was serious about introducing an systems that were being used to sustain the ethic of environmental responsibility but mushrooming migrant population. Unlike the primarily for political reasons. In a pragmatic nineteenth century when the water drained attempt to direct attention away from the away unimpeded, the typhoon-driven floods developing impacts of his cronies’ ‘ecological from the 1970s onwards not only inundated the footprints’ in Manila and beyond, hemany new slum and squatter communities but calculatingly blamed the esteros dwellers and also many middle-class residential complexes urban poor. and the lingering polluted waters could take weeks to subside. Centuries earlier, when floods washed over Manila, the water would ordinarily subside Delays in the implementation of a flood-control within a few days. Now, in the 1970s, with so project in Metro Manila in the aftermath of much of the capital under asphalt, the sewers Typhoon Gloring had driven the project cost up crumbling and developers having built over from the original estimate of 236 million pesos vital soak ways, the water was trapped. During to nearly one billion pesos. This estimate these years, as with the Filipino public at large, covered only the infrastructure aspect of an Manila’s citizens were not given theenvisaged three-billion-pesos flood-control opportunity to be directly involved in the project. Various sources besides the congress planning and redistribution of typhoon and had been tapped to raise the necessary funds flood relief aid that would drastically affect the for a flood-control system, including a 0.25 future of their lives for better or worse. peso tax on cinema goers, a proposed one- eighth of one per cent real estate tax, a floating The urban congestion caused by the post-war casino and the sale of one billion pesos worth of migration as livelihoods and natural resources reclaimed land in the area. The disappeared in the islands, had led to the movie tax had generated over 50 million pesos development of squatter communities on since December 1972, but Metro Manila marshy lowlands, vacant lots or unusedresidents did not reap its benefits. The floods agricultural land close to Manila. The shanty got worse year by year. But from the standpoint housing was highly individual, substandard and of political economy, flood-control was essential often constructed from salvaged materials, for Metro Manila which accounted for almost including scrap metal, discarded timber and half the country’s Gross National Product cardboard. Water for cooking and drinking had (GNP).22 to be hauled from distant standpipes, and kerosene was generally used for lighting and By 1976, workers had started to remove fuel. Garbage and human waste were often obstacles which blocked the flow of floodwater disposed of in drainage ditches, nearby bays or along the esteros, drainage mains and other rivers close to where the makeshift structures outlets into the and Manila Bay. had been erected.21 Unfortunately, the floods triggered by Typhoon Didang in May 1976 came before the Every year during the typhoon season (July to completion of work on three pumping stations November) President Marcos controlled a city for the Metro Manila area, which would serve that swam in filth. Large areas of Manila were as major outlets for waters coming from the

7 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF areas of Quiapo, Sampaloc, San Miguel and days of rescue and relief but waning political nearby places. The city’s only other pumping support during the hard years of reconstruction station (the fourth one), recently inaugurated, and rehabilitation that follow.’25 was temporarily rendered useless by water lilies that clogged its outlet to the Pasig River. A typhoon or flood disaster could turn an Typhoon Didang’s impact highlighted the lack impoverished region characterised by scarcity of drainage, operational pumping stations and into a ‘disaster boom economy’.26 A classic case the dire necessity of establishing a new fund in point was Typhoon Meding. Marcos’ for the flood-control system.23 handling of this typhoon and the associated floods helped revive his flagging political General Government Responses: Ferdinand fortunes prior to the declaration of martial law. Marcos The winds of Typhoon Meding were comparatively mild, but unrelenting rain for Greg Bankoff, in his exploration of the politics five days caused damaging floods. On 2 of recent natural disasters in the Philippines, September 1970, greater Manila and central has investigated the correlation between Luzon suffered widespread devastation, natural disasters and the way power and economic damage and loss of human lives due 24 wealth are articulated in the Philippines. to the torrential rains. In the thick of it all Under Marcos the convergence of interests and President Marcos could be seen appearing on activities leading to control of the pattern and television, announcing a state of emergency personnel involved in the administration of and mobilising government rescue and relief available disaster relief was a blatant, albeit efforts, promising flood-control projects to the complex, political issue and problem, which people, and ordering the release of 300,000 involved bureaucrats, military personnel, entire pesos to the social welfare administration to communities, trans-national donors and market finance relief operations. The First Lady and interests. Bankoff notes in his discussion of the Bong Bong Marcos went on the road, way some people profited at the expense of personally distributing relief goods. At the others from the impacts of a natural disaster, same time, Manila’s Mayor Villegas was that extreme typhoons, like Gloring, provided desperately asking the municipal boards for an ideal opportunity for Marcos supporters to power to borrow funds so he could implement a politically grandstand and financially profit flood-control project to protect his own city.27 from the situation. They personally redistributed relief materials to theirScores of people were stricken with influenza, constituencies while taking full advantage of gastro-enteritis, pneumonia, diphtheria and the widespread devastation and deprivation to diarrhoea, with a 60 per cent increase in attack political opponents in similarlyhospital admissions. Government agencies and threatened communities for their seeming lack the departments of National Defence, Health of assistance. The manipulation of disaster- and Public Works and Communication were relief funds by the Marcos politicians, and their mobilised by the President. Marcos looked ability to reap political and social capital from decisive and sympathetic as he provided rapid, their risk management of floods, depended to a albeit selective, operational assistance. The certain extent on the control and manipulation President was reported as stating that his of the media. As Bankoff notes, in such states of government would look into ways and means of emergency, ‘Political concern with the victims finding immediate remedial measures to of natural disasters tends to follow the same alleviate the appalling living conditions of many ebb and flow as that of the media: much rural and urban people, particularly those concern and many promises during the first displaced by the floods.28 Politically this

8 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF rhetoric and grandstanding seemed convincing. It signified not only firm leadership, but also the fact that he was taking a strategic approach in dealing with the unfolding crisis. In addition, he involved the full range of key stakeholders in the disaster mediation and relief process. The armed forces were mobilised at the President’s behest. In central Luzon, 10,000 military men were alerted for relief and rescue operations. Army trucks evacuated flood-bound residents, navy divers scoured the flood waters for the missing, government relief agencies were placed on high alert and the Red Cross and civic organisations established relief centres all over Manila—but the overseas donated and government funds did not always reach the intended recipients. Instead, against this background of a proclaimed state of calamity, the conservative-run Marcos administration was the prime beneficiary both Figure 4. Category 4 super typhoon Yoling, economically and politically. 14 November–22 November 1970, peak intensity, 250 km/h (155 mph) People candidly pointed out that the calamity (Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, had favoured the conservative moneyedSSHS). candidates for the impending Constitutional Convention. As one commentator suggested, Source. ‘ (Yoling),’Wikipedia , ‘Indeed some candidates and their spouses, online: never known for their social conscience, were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Pacific_typh suddenly flapping all over the stricken areas oon_season#Typhoon_Patsy_.28Yoling.29, with the solicitousness of vultures.’29 Charges accessed 14 August 2013. also flew back and forth that certain vested political interests were hoarding relief goods A confident Marcos, consequently was not so for release at the approach of elections, for concerned or solicitous several months later very obvious reasons. For a month, the dire when Typhoon Yoling (Patsy) struck on a cold state of Luzon and the Philippine economy, the grey November day in 1970 (see Figures 4 and dominant theme of the impending election in 5). As the weather worsened, Ferdinand and the aftermath of Typhoon Meding, was Imelda Marcos took the Burmese General Ne constantly discussed by the media in regard to Win and Madame Ne Win to by train the President’s decisive role in mounting relief because the approaching typhoon did not operations to manage the risk of floods. Marcos permit them to fly. While Yoling was rampaging took pains to ensure that his ‘political’ across Manila, Marcos and the General played intervention caused by Meding’s impacts lasted golf on the Mansion house course.30 It became until the elections. But the Presidents apparent that the President, First Lady and operational actions and selective assistance their guests were to remain ignorant and, at over urban flooding were not appreciated by times, seemingly unconcerned about the plight his weakened political opponents. of the people of Manila and the outlying provinces, as the typhoon took a terrible toll in

9 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF lives and property. In the aftermath of the disaster, the government would be harshly criticised for its callous attitude and failure to act rapidly and decisively, and one of the least successful emergency- rescue efforts ever mounted in the Marcos years must be counted as a major political blunder.

Rather than oversee immediate management of the disaster himself, the President put the Executive Secretary and Assistant Executive Secretary in charge of the operation on this occasion. Only after his round of golf with Ne Caption: Figure 5. Track of Typhoon Win had been completed, did Marcos belatedly Yoling, showing proximity to Manila. issue a proclamation declaring a state of calamity in Manila, , City and Source. ‘Typhoon Patsy (Yoling),’Wikipedia , . This delay was to prove costly.online: Thousands of government employees and other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patsy_1970_tr citizens were stranded in Quiapo and Santa ack.png, accessed 14 August 2013. Cruz because the government had not declared a no-work day. Repeated appeals for army trucks to ferry the stranded employees away He was not to make the same political from the flood-affected areas went unheeded. misjudgement again. On 12 July 1972, when The association of private contractors who had Typhoon Gloring struck, President Marcos offered to help Defence Secretary Juan Ponce immediately declared a state of calamity in the Enrile coordinate the relief effort was left entire Luzon region and recommended to facing no decision. Meanwhile, Marcos was Congress the urgent passage of a 250-million finally advised about the scale of the death and pesos calamity fund measure. But his destruction left by the extreme typhoon. He recommendations fell on deaf ears. However, arrived back in Manila on 20 November and both the deafening silence and indifference in called an emergency meeting of key officials at Congress to the proposed 250-million peso the headquarters of the National Defense calamity fund lasted only five days, when Coordinating Council (NDCC) at CampTyphoon Gloring re-entered the islands with a Aguinaldo at noon. After being briefed he vengeance. Over the next seven days President signed the proclamation, declaring a state of Marcos personally directed the massive relief calamity and allocated 100,000 pesos for and rehabilitation efforts that were undertaken calamity relief.31 by the national government. The swift decisions made by Marcos beginning on 19 July 1972 included:

ordering the immediate release of 3 million pesos representing the unspent balance of the Presidential Calamity Fund in the previous year’s budget and taking full responsibility of this apparently illegal act, as there was no budget yet to sanction any release of

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public funds during the current fiscal made sure they received relief funds and food year; aid that neighbouring Pampanga—further south seeking help of foreign governments to on the road to Manila—was denied. provide additional relief goods; conducting several aerial surveys of the Furthermore, Marcos activated four disaster areas; government departments to bring help to the ordering the commandeering of all victims of Typhoon Gloring: the departments of available food supplies and private National Defence, Health, Social Welfare and transport facilities in certain locations as Public Works. Threats of an El Tor epidemic in 34 emergency measures to help government confronted Marcos, who, on 24 relief agencies; July 1972, immediately took steps to avert the warning greater Manila that if food spread of the disease. He ordered station prices continued to increase, he would hospitals to be established in various take the same drastic measures as in towns—just one of a series of measures Luzon; adopted to prevent the spread of El Tor, gastro- converting the Maharlika Hall ofenteritis and bronchial diseases that usually Malacanang into an emergency hospital follow in the wake of floods and typhoons.35 The for ailing flood victims; Health Department carried out mass temporarily transferring the seat of inoculation against El Tor, other strains of government to Pangasinan.32 cholera and typhoid in central Luzon. At the same time Marcos ordered a physical inventory Marcos had also ordered the suspension of the of rice and other food stored in private distribution of relief in Pampanga and the warehouses. He directed the seizure of rice and diversion of these goods to Pangasinan flood food stocks in private warehouses if the owners sufferers. These relief operations had been no refused to sell to flood victims at prices fixed by more than a trickle, squeezed out of the the Price Control Council. province’s own meagre and fast-dwindling supplies, before Marcos abruptly shifted relief In addition, the President quickly moved to tap operations away from Pampanga. On Saturday foreign loans for the repair of major public night, 23 July 1972, the navy transport,RPS works projects. He directed the Finance and its cargo of clothes, Secretary to prepare an estimate of the foodstuffs and medicines was the first to cast necessary matching funds for a $300 million anchor off Lingayen. The arrival of the first loan from a consortium of world bankers. The relief ship sparked squabbles over thePresident stated in an interview that the disposition of the cargo of rice amongst the counterpart fund could be as much as 1.8 province’s incumbent and aspiring political billion pesos under the usual requirement that leaders. On Tuesday 2 August, two more it should be at least 60 per cent of the proposed transport ships, British and American, docked loan. The loan, when secured, would be repaid with 110,000 pounds of relief goods, securing over a number of years. Marcos explained, ‘The Pangisanan’s relief supplies. By then the situation is so desperate and explosive and the President had flown in with a team of national reason I say this is because we have not yet officials; a tent was set up near the Lingayen seen the end of the rainy and typhoon season, airstrip and with it came more promises of and there may yet be deficiencies this year in 36 funds for Pangasinan.33 The politically grateful food, medicines and services.’ loyal supporters of Pangasinan began a miraculously fast recovery from their misery Four years later, on 20 May 1976, four days under the watchful eye of their President who after Typhoon Didang had struck, Marcos

11 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF proclaimed a state of calamity in Metro Manila, Typhoons June (August 1984) and Ike Quezon Province and the Bikol region, in order (September 1984), which lashed a wide area of to ensure rapid selective distribution of relief the central and southern Philippines, unleashed goods and assistance and maintain stable the worst calamities to hit the archipelago in prices of prime commodities. The President fourteen years. In a delivered broadcast on made the announcement at an emergency Tuesday 5 September 1984, President Marcos meeting of top government officials and asked his nation, to forget its differences and military officers. He reassured the Filipino concentrate fully on rescue efforts. He said, people that everything in their power was Typhoon Ike was ‘one of the most severe that being done to assist them. He advised flood the nation has experienced in decades…the victims to stay indoors unless performing total toll at this time is hundreds, I hope not essential functions or relief work. The First thousands dead.’40 The First Lady flew to Lady, as Metro Manila Governor, said there stricken areas in the Visayas and Mindanao was enough food in the greater metropolitan regions. The Presidential Palace announced area and that government agencies were doing that she surveyed the destruction and directed their best to prevent hoarding.37 She also asked distribution of relief goods. A week after Manila mayors and her action staff onMarcos’ television speech, the eruption of the infrastructure and flood control to submit a Mayon Volcano, 250 miles southeast of Manila, rapid assessment of the extent of the flooding which forced the evacuation of 20,000 people, and damage, so immediate recovery steps added to the pressures on the Marcos regime could be formulated and taken. Orders were and Manila. Ash fallout and mud flows from given to remove all illegal constructions, such rain caused extensive damage to crops in the as fish ponds, along riverbanks and esteros and area and the displacement of a rural populace prosecute those responsible for wateron a large scale. obstruction and drainage problems. As in the case of Typhoon Gloring, the President and The besieged government called for First Lady looked decisive andinternational assistance. Again, several million sympathetic—both on the spot and ondollars in foreign relief aid poured into the television.38 Philippines to help the estimated 2.4 million people affected by the typhoons and volcanic The Philippines experienced severe storms and eruption. But the Marcos administration flooding throughout the 1970s that led to requested even more international assistance hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage in order to cope with the scope and magnitude in Manila and the neighbouring islands to the of the crisis. Diplomatic sources in Manila, south. In 1978, President Marcos took a cold however, publicly stated that given the hard look at the national recovery effort, or unstable economic environment in the lack of it. The promulgation of Presidential Philippines, there was a possibility that relief Decree (PD) No. 1566 that year created the aid would be diverted and not reach the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) victims. Marcos officials denied this could which provided for ‘Strengthening thehappen and several countries immediately Philippine Disaster Control Capability and responded to the desperate call for assistance. Establishing the National Program on Community Disaster Preparedness.’39 The Specific Government Responses: Imelda NDCC, under Marcos’ rule, automatically Marcos became the highest policy-making, decision- making and coordinating body for disaster Many long-term root causes were to blame in management in the Philippines. part for the calamitous circumstances

12 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF surrounding the succession of disastrous In May 1976, when Typhoon Didang was fast cyclonic storms of the 1970s and early 1980s. approaching, Imelda Marcos rallied the private However, the rapid population growth and sector and citizenry to help alleviate the urbanisation of Manila in the Marcos years suffering of those who would be badly affected outstripped the paltry amounts that had been by the floods. She also expressed hope that the earmarked in the annual budget to assist policy emergency would ‘give every citizen, rich or makers and technical specialists deal with flood poor, a sense of responsibility so that we may control in a rapidly expanding city. The money not aggravate natural flood handicaps by available covered only a limited amount of unwitting action.’42 She then spent most of that dredging of the Pasig River and somenight and the following morning monitoring improvements to the drainage system and reports from the NDCC and emergency relief infrastructure that linked the polluted river, operations mobilised by barangay units in the flowing at a snail’s pace through the heart of Metro Manila area.43 the capital, to Manila Bay. In the years following Didang, when typhoons Imelda Marcos was constantly in the public eye raked Manila, Mrs Marcos would personally throughout these years making relief visits to direct the relief work in afflicted areas. For the storm- and flood-affected areas and to the thousands annually rendered homeless by NDCC at Camp Aguinaldo. Flooded sites were waist-level contaminated flood waters, the checked, as were emergency centres being figure of the First Lady organising medicine, readied for the relief and rehabilitation of food and other relief goods for distribution in typhoon and flood victims. Relief goods were Metro Manila’s social welfare and evacuation constantly solicited from the private sector. centres became a common sight. Hence, when During Typhoon Norming, 15–16 August 1974, Typhoon Yaning hit central Luzon on 9 October Mrs Marcos went personally to the NDCC to 1978, Imelda Marcos mobilised allbarangay - oversee operations in neighbouring affected based disaster brigades to assist. She asked the provinces. She ordered the distribution of barangay captains to coordinate all their seeds for planting be speeded up, particularly activities with their respective mayors. Metro in central Luzon. She also inquired into the Manila officials and other action officers were implementation of drainage and flood-control in constant touch with variousbarangay measures. She asked staff at Camp Aguinaldo coordinators and the mayors from the Metro to send medical teams immediately to the Manila Coordinating Operations Center, to flooded areas in greater Manila and central ensure that the Governor’s orders were carried Luzon.41 While the First Lady occasionally out fully.44 received a chilly welcome from residents suffering from hunger and disease, generally This vertical integration of the Marcos flood victims in the worst-affected places administration of the relief process and welcomed her with open arms, as if she was distribution of relief goods was built on politics their saviour. The repeated relief operations and dyadic ties, namely party loyalty and grass- and measures she personally mounted to roots communal affiliation and responsibility. resolve the flood crises in Manila, primarily Such personal loyalties in the context of caused by typhoon-related rains and poor disaster relief efforts were translated into the drainage, suggested there was a powerful political process in the Marcos years through political imposition of will and concern on her what Carl Lande called ‘vertical chains of part to pragmatically act, and as quickly as dyadic patron-client relationships,’ extending possible, to resolve particular local crises. from the provincial elite and administrators down to lesser figures in the towns and

13 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF barangays, the smallest administrative unit, of implementing proper mitigation policies to and thence to the citizens.45 It was this reduce the risk of typhoon and flood disasters, indispensible culturally configured informal Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos cunningly system of relationships based on mutual- focussed on nature itself, in the guise of the assistance and responsibility that constituted wrath of God. They took advantage of certain the real basis of political strength of the relief religious beliefs about sin and punishment, and, work and partisan politics during the Marcos the godhead, and anthropomorphised nature’s years.46 fury in terms of divine intervention. The President and his First Lady did not find it However, all was not as it seemed on the difficult or hypocritical to think and talk about surface. Marcos stressed that Malacanang and typhoon- and flood-related mass death and the Department of Social Services were taking destruction in terms of the religious rhetoric of the lead role in the distribution of relief goods divine punishment and miracles in the until conditions returned to normal. But Philippine context. Indeed, by the 1980s, suspicions about political misuse of the disaster newspaper findings suggest that Ferdinand and aid arose over reports that Australian food Imelda Marcos attempted to impose the notion parcels had been relabelled as a ‘gift from the of the wrath of God on storm-ravaged people President and First Lady,’ when handed out to and flood victims in order to justify the failure storm and volcano victims. The Minister of of relief efforts and circumvent the new Social Services, Sylvia Montes, quicklypressures put on their politically beleaguered countered the accusation stating that there had government by repeated typhoon strikes. been a misunderstanding because of the fact that the Philippine government had been using As well as invoking the wrath of God, Mrs surplus Australian boxes to distribute its own Marcos turned the oft-times perilous plight of food in a separate project and had relabelled the squatters and esteros-dwellers to her own them. The Minister of Social Services denied political advantage. In the aftermath of the any political misappropriation of the disaster disastrous impact of Typhoon Didang, she aid and said, ‘We can hold our heads high that appeared on television and observed that the there is no pillage.’47 She also denied reports squatters—human and industrial—on the that starvation was spreading among the esteros were the primary cause of the floods victims in some evacuation camps. and she called for a firm hand by the government when dealing with them. ‘Illegally When their ‘political credit’ waned, if their built structures block the natural passage ways manipulation of relief funds failed to produce of the rains to the Pasig River and Manila Bay,’ the desired political result, Ferdinand and she said.48 She also stated that the ‘Government Imelda Marcos were apt to invoke the language must learn from its mistakes and short of miracles and the wrath of God, as a powerful sightedness in undertaking major construction cultural-symbolic idiom for the retention of without constant regard for drainage power and to excuse the state’s abrogation of facilities.’49 But, because of the ongoing social responsibility. In this way, the President environmental destruction based on building and First Lady could shift the focus of attention office sky scrapers and opulent housing estates, away from the charges of the political misuse of and the unrelenting pace of rural-urban relief funds and the accusations of unbridled migration, in reality the only way to make the development by calling upon the powerful idea capital flood-free was to build more canals, of deus maquina (divine intervention), which reservoirs and water catchment areas. they translated into a culturally familiar religious message with a political twist. Instead It is against this background of an emerging

14 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF housing and environmental crisis and frequent was a flipside to the modern skyscrapers now typhoon disasters that I now turn my attention beginning to define the development of Manila to Imelda Marcos’ grand vision, to showcase as a great modern urban centre: the gritty Manila to the world. The rise of commercial jet transport system, the fetid streets and travel and the rise of Imelda’s Manila in an age laneways of the down- and- out districts, of trans-national capital and investment went teeming poverty, and the ubiquitousesteros . hand-in-hand. The First Lady wanted to make And, Imelda Marcos’ team had no real answers the capital a recognised destination for both to transform the impoverished essence of the jet-age traveller and the globe-trotting Manila that now sat alongside the emergent business executive. She understood thatPotemkin-like gloss and glamour of the city. In although the Philippines appeared to offer a the meantime, typhoons and floods continued large and growing consumer market with a to play havoc with an under-resourced range of possibilities for internationalmaintenance and flood-prevention program in development schemes, macro-investments and large parts of the diverse and multi-faceted global capital manoeuvring, its population was capital. not affluent, and much of it was still rural. In late 1975, the First Lady was declaredConclusion Governor of the new administration system of Manila.50 The stage-managed development of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos did not only use Manila from this time onward presented Imelda the productive character of ‘power’ to restrict Marcos and her municipal administration with social and individual possibilities. They a unique opportunity to construct a major produced new strategies and techniques of series of iconic buildings and landscapesocial control, through the development of their settings, as both an aesthetic lure of capital vice-like regulation and management of and market networks and a visible, albeit disaster relief and, correspondingly, new social iconic, sign of ‘progress’ under new society and political capacities in the individuals 52 rule, signalling a city moving towards the threatened by the typhoons and floods. future. But the First Lady’s aspirational vision Kenneth Hewitt argues in interpreting the role to make Metro Manila one of the great cities of of hazards in third-world societies that if the the world, in fact, gave birth to a programme of main purpose of government and scholars is to urban renewal, whose fundamental social and bring aid to the needy after calamity has struck economic interests did not correspond with the then it is clear that these disaster-mitigation greater good.51 responses were not working properly, and they were making matters worse in the Philippines She considered, with the urban planners, that of the 1970s and mid-1980s. These failings the top priority of the newly established were generated by preoccupations of the Metropolitan Manila Commission was the Marcos government that were political- modernisation of Manila. This goal was to be economic, agency centred and selectively, accomplished through the city’s management communal-centric. There was no need to system and integrated developmentquestion whether this was a deliberate moral or programmes. Endorsed to head the city-wide technical choice; rather it was a simple but commission, Imelda Marcos with her staff of necessary side effect of partisan political and planners conceived and implemented three institutional arrangements. It is the meaning programmes ‘as a matter of survival,’ namely: and implication of these arrangements as they selective flood control for the protection of bear upon the interpretation of risk and parts of the city from the ‘decay of death’; responsibility for damages and disaster public cleanliness and beautification. But there relief—but also, more importantly, in relation to

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‘who eats and who does not’—with which disaster struck. But, in fact, the Marcos Hewitt is concerned.53 Clearly, the Marcos regime’s political culture, which was administration derived a dual benefit from the increasingly violent and moving towards yet destruction and deprivation wrought by the another more-devastating war of counter- typhoons and floods: the value of the resources insurgency on the flimsiest of cold-war they controlled became inflated in a political pretexts, was rapidly destroying the and material sense, and they also controlled the environment of which Filipinos had been force necessary to either expand and protect, custodians for hundreds of years. The economic or deny, the support of redistributableand environmental politics of the government resources and aid.54 reduced increasing numbers of people to a state of impoverishment and chronic anxiety. At It is difficult to imagine what the Philippines the same time, a few politically well-connected would have been like today if its particular families and individuals became richer and post-1960s environmental history underricher. They and the government violated their Marcos had been different—one that had not social and ethical obligations towards the resulted in the creation of an asset stripped, victims of typhoons and floods and repeatedly disaster-prone, debris-strewn landscape in created wealth out of other people’s many parts of the country. Ferdinand and misfortune. Imelda Marcos believed that creating a safer environment in the face of typhoons and floods Hence, at the height of the political ‘water was basically a political rather than an ethical games’ damning presidential rhetoric was concern and one directed to those in power. directed at the anonymous population of The deadly risks entailed in their self-seeking outcast Manila—the alleged dangerous slum- model of disaster relief with its short-term dwelling rural migrants—who had swelled the pragmatic political goals made explicitly clear ranks of the city. As late as 1985, as floods and one of the most frightening tradeoffs in heavy storms lashed the Philippines, Marcos Philippine history. Loyal local governments and would continue to blame the migrant poor for supporters would readily receive financial and the floods that tarnished Manila’s international material support in order to saveimage, claiming Filipinos who clogged up the infrastructure, agricultural crops and as many canals and sewers with their garbage were lives as possible, but individuals, communities committing an ‘unpatriotic and selfish act.’55 and areas opposed to the Marcos regime would But, such floods and typhoon disasters had real be sacrificed. political utility and provided a silver lining for the Marcos regime; one need only to look over The Marcos regime did not suffer much the decade spanning the mid-1970s to politically from the adverse effects of typhoons mid-1980s, at the enormous extent of direct and their opposition did not gain much. The involvement of the First Lady in controlling the government had political ingenuity andregulation and distribution of relief aid in the substantial resources for relief and rescue aftermath of the storms and floods, following operations at their disposal. Filipinos who were Typhoon Gloring. Indeed, huge sums of money positive about the Marcos government before that had led to little or no success with respect the typhoons of the early 1970s remained to effective flood control had changed hands positive afterwards. Supporters and recipients without direct accountability or proper risk of relief aid had a consistently high opinion of management measures in place. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. They would not inflict their hostility and life-threateningThroughout the 1970s and 1980s, these so- concerns upon the couple when naturalcalled natural disasters, which required

16 11 | 43 | 3 APJ | JF mobilisation of nation-wide relief efforts, sanitation and beautification projects with emerged out of a particular institutional and considerable fanfare, but she certainly was not cultural setting in the Philippine context. prepared to condone the social tightening and Ferdinand Marcos’ economic reforms had political reform and regulation of the market brought about dramatic socio-economic and economy, that was required to improve the lot ecological changes that increased the risks of of Manila’s squatters and migrants living along man-made rather than natural disasters. But the esteros and in places like Tondo. the President and First Lady steadfastly refused to acknowledge the link between crony In the political environment of the Marcos capitalism, unsustainable economicyears, the government had sometimes blocked development and natural disasters in an aid for typhoon and flood victims. In the 1970s increasingly unstable archipelago. Theyand early 1980s, there is evidence of the deliberately remained in a state of denial, abrogation of international humanitarian relief except to encourage big business, overseas norms and international legal frameworks for governments and aid agencies to provide disaster relief under the Marcos regime in the massive injections of capital and material Philippines. During those years, wilful acts of support for relief efforts, rather thanmisappropriation and mismanagement of relief encouraging them to support appropriate funds, and theft and the improper sale of relief disaster-mitigation strategies. supplies in the name of politics occurred on a regular basis in the Philippines. Consequently, During the Marcos years in the 1970s and early adequate food, shelter and medical care for 1980s, the loss of thousands of lives, as well as thousands of people on the other side of the the extensive damage caused by typhoons was political divide in the Marcos years, who were partially a consequence of settlement patterns adversely affected by typhoons and floods, was located in high-risk areas; namely, the sub- never provided. standard low-lying locale and condition of settlement patterns in many of these areas; the Recommended citation: James F. Warren, "A sub-standard condition of many homes and Tale of Two Decades: Typhoons and Floods, public buildings, and the poor design of roads, Manila and the Provinces, and the Marcos bridges, under-passes and drainage canals.56 Years," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue Hence, the storms and floods affected the 43, No. 3, October 28, 2013. entire urban community in Manila, but none more so than the poor—in particular, the Bio/Writings squatters and shanty-town dwellers of Tondo. James Warren is Professor of Southeast Asian Ironically, the growing number of urban poor in Modern History at Murdoch University, Manila was largely attributable to the Western . He gained his PhD in uncontrolled sky’s-the-limit policies of rapid Southeast Asian History from the Australian economic growth under the martial law-lead National University, and is an internationally Marcos regime from the late 1960s to 1986. renowned scholar of Southeast Asian studies. Crony Capitalism and the loss of livelihoods Professor Warren, who speaks or reads, and natural resources were the key causes for Spanish, Dutch, Malay-Indonesian, Samal Bajau understanding the basis of the increasing social Laut and Japanese, is a member of the and environmental degradation in the city, not Australian Academy of Humanities. In 2003, he the alleged dangerous lifestyle of the squatters received the Centenary Medal of Australia for and aspiring migrants from the provinces. ‘Service to Australian Society and the Imelda Marcos was to rapidly instigateHumanities in the Study of Ethnohistory,’ and in 2013, he was awarded the Grant Goodman

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Prize in Historical Studies from the Philippine Connections, Commodities and Culture Studies Group, Association for Asian Studies. (: New Day Publishers, 2000). [Not available at amazon.com. Link leads to article.] He has published numerous articles in journals and chapters in edited volumes.His The Sulu Zone, The World Capitalist Economy monographs include: and the Historical Imagination, (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1998). [Not available at Pirates, Prostitutes and Pullers: Explorations in amazon.com. Link leads to a document the Ethno- and Social History of Southeast Asia download.] (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2008). At the Edge of Southeast Asian History: Essays by James Francis Warren (Quezon City: New Ah Ku and Karayuki-san: Prostitution inDay Press, 1987). Singapore. (1870-1940) (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993); ( new paperback A Guide to the George L. Peet Collection on edition with a new introduction (Singapore: Malaysia and Singapore, (Murdoch, WA: Singapore University Press, 2003), theatre Murdoch University Library, 1986). adaptation-‘Broken Birds: an Epic Longing’, 1995) The North Chartered Company's Administration of the Bajau, 1878–1909 The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of (Southeast Asia Series Monograph no. 22. External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Athens: Ohio University, 1971). [Not available Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime on amazon.com. Link leads to library entry.] State, (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981; reprint Quezon City: New Day Press, Notes 1986); new paperback edition with a new 1 introduction (Singapore: Singapore University See James K. Boyce, The Political Economy of Press, 2007). Growth and Impoverishment in the Marcos Years (Loyola Heights: Ateneo de Manila Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History ofUniversity Press, 1993); Robin Broad with John Singapore, 1880-1940 (Singapore: Oxford Cavanagh, Plundering Paradise The Struggle University Press, 1986); new paperback edition for the Environment in the Philippines with a new introduction ( Singapore: Singapore (Berkeley: University of Californian Press, University Press, 2003) Theater adaptation-‘My 1993). Grandfather in the Cellar’, 1989). 2 David M. Kummer,Deforestation in the Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Postwar Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity (Singapore: Manila University Press, 1992); Marites Singapore University Press, 2002),- theatre Danguilan Vitug, Power from the Forest: the adaptation-‘Tawag Sa Bantayan Punta’, 2011). Politics of Logging(Manila: Center for Investigative Journalism, 1993); Michael Iranun and Balangingi :Globalization, Maritime Williams, Deforesting the Earth: From Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity (Quezon City: Prehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago: University New Day Publishers, 2002), nominated as a of Chicago Press, 2006); David Wurfel, Filipino finalist for the National Book Awards the Politics: Development and Decay (Loyala Philippines, Social Science category. Heights: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988). The Global Economy and the Sulu Zone

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3 See Micheal H. Glantz, Currents of Change: El 11 Amelia P. Varela, ‘Different faces of Filipino Nino’s Impact on Climate and Societyadministrative culture,’ inPublic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Administration by the Year 2000: Looking Back 1996); Ross Couper-Johnston, El Niño: The into the Future, ed. Proserpine Domingo Weather Phenomenon that Changed the World Tapales, Nestor N. Pilar and Leonora D. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000); Richard Romblon (Quezon City: College of Public J. Murnane and Kam–Biu Liu (eds), Hurricanes Administration, University if the Philippines, and Typhoons: Past, Present, and Future (New 1995), 161–77; 174. See also Jon S. T. Quah, York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries: An Impossible Dream? Bingley: Emerald Group 4 Habibul Haque Khondker, ‘Politics, disaster publishing Ltd., 2011, 119. and refugees: the Bangladesh case,’ in Crossing Borders: Transmigration in Asia Pacific, ed. 12 David Chaikin and J. Shaman, ‘The Marcos Ong Jin Hui, Chan Kwok Bun and Chew Soon kleptocracy,’ Corruption and Money Beng (New York: Prentice Hall, 1995), 173–84; Laundering: A Symbiotic Relationship, 173. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009, 153–86.

5 See, Wurfel, Filipino Politics, 114–53. 13 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 66–67. See Daniel F. Doeppers and Peter Xenos, ‘A 6 Wurfel, Filipino Politics, 114–53; Area demographic frame for Philippine History,’ in Handbook for the Philippines (Washington: Population and History: the Demographic Foreign Area Studies (FAS) AmericanOrigin of the Modern Philippines, ed. Daniel F. University, 1976), 210–11. Doeppers and Peter Xenos (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1998), 1–16. 7 Another term for clientalism is patron-client relationships. Cheng-Tian Kuo,Global 14 F. Landa Jocano, Slum as a Way of Life Competitiveness and Industrial Growth in (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1975). Taiwan and the Philippines (Pittsburg and London: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 15 Khondker, ‘Politics, disaster and refugees: 79. the Bangladesh case,’ 173. Hurricane Katrina and the fate of the presidency of George Bush 8 Stephan Haggard, ‘The political economy of is a classic example of how the political the Philippine debt crisis,’ in Economic Crisis environment and a natural disaster interact and Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment in with one another with unforeseen the Third World, ed. Joan. M. Nelson consequences for all parties concerned. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); cited in Kuo,Global Competitiveness and 16 Abby Tan, ‘Typhoons, volcanos add pressure Industrial Growth in Taiwan and theto Marcos,’ The Washington Post, 18 Philippines, 79. September 1984.

9 Kuo, Global Competitiveness and Industrial 17 ‘Typhoons kills 473 in Philippines,’The Growth in Taiwan and the Philippines, 79. Washington Post, 5 September 1984.

10 David G. Timbermann, A Changeless Land: 18 Jean Pope ‘Let’s talk about the weather,’ Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics Sunday Times Magazine, 26 July 1964, 44. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian 19 Studies), 1991, 91–92. See ‘A brief history of the Philippine Meteorological Service,’Philippine

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Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Graphic, 4 November 1970. Services and Administration (PAGASA), online, 29 th http://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/history.shtml, Barrameda, ‘The 13 of October, Black accessed 18 December 2012. Tuesday.’

30 20 Charlotte Benson, The Economic Impact of Jose V. Barrameda, Jr., ‘Typhoon Yoling, a Natural Disasters in the Philippines (London: cold grey November day,’ Graphic, 9 December Overseas Development Institute, 1997),1970. 94–102. 31 H.D. Suyko, ‘When disaster struck,’The 21 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 120–21. Weekly Nation, 30 November–7 December 1970. 22 Val Abelgas, ‘Workers start clearing clogged 32 drainage,’ Philippines Daily Express, 25 May ‘The loneliness of a long distance relief 1976. See, Abhas K Jha, Robin Bloch and worker,’ The Manila Times, 25 July 1972. Jessica Lamond, Cities and Flooding: A Guide 33 to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management ‘After week long ordeal Pangasinan rises,’ no for the 21st Century (Washington D.C.: The date, no source, Typhoon News Clipping File World Bank, 2011). (TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA.

34 23 ‘Metro Manilans will have to get used to El Tor is the name given to a particular strain more floods,’ Philippines Sunday Express, 23 of the bacterium vibrio cholerae, the causative May 1976. agent of cholera.

35 24 Greg Bankoff and Dorothea Hilhorst, ‘The ‘El Tor threatens flooded towns!’ The Manila politics of risk in the Philippines: comparing Times, 24 July 1972. state and NGO perceptions of disaster 36 ‘Says RP must raise P1.8 B,’ no date,The management,’ in Disasters, vol. 33, no. 4 Manila Times, Typhoon News Clipping File (2009): 686–704. (TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA. 25 Greg Bankoff,’ A history of poverty: the 37 Vicente M. Tanedo and Cecilio T. Arillo, politics of natural disasters in the Philippines, ‘Marcos proclaims calamity,’The Times 1985–1995,’ The Pacific Review, vol. 12, no. 3 Journal, 21 May 1976. (1999): 381–420; 405–11.

38 26 ‘FL asks for aid to victims,’The Times Anthony Oliver Smith, ‘Anthropological Journal, 20 May 1976, Typhoon News Clipping research on hazards and disasters,’Annual File (TNC), 1976–1978, PAGASA. Review of Anthropology, vol. 25 (1996): 303–28; 311–12. 39 ‘Information on disaster risk reduction of the

27 member countries,’ Asian Disaster Reduction E.F. Formento, Jr., ‘Calamity and typhoon Center (ADRC), 2008, online: Meding. Or what happens when the rains come http://www.adrc.asia/nationinformation.php?Na in torrents,’ The Weekly Nation, 14 September tionCode=608&Lang=en&Mode=country, 1970. accessed 18 December 2012. 28 ‘Lopez to flood areas today,’The Manila 40 ‘Typhoon kills 473 in the Philippines.’ Times, 8 September 1970; Jose V. Barrameda, th Jr., ‘The 13 of October, Black Tuesday,’ 41 ‘Death toll goes up to 19,’ Times Journal, 18

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August 1974; ‘Epidemic outbreak,’ The Manila 49 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’ Times, 25 July 1972, Typhoon News Clipping File (TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA. 50 Manuel A. Caoili, The Origins of Metropolitan Manila: A Political and Social Analysis (Quezon 42 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’ City: New Day Publishers, 1988), 157–59.

43 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’ 51 David Goldblatt, Social Theory and the Environment (London: Polity Press, 1996), 195. 44 M. Casayuran, ‘Storm rakes Central Luzon; exiting today,’ Bulletin Today, 10 October 1978, 52 George Caffentzis, ‘On the notion of a crisis Typhoon News Clipping File (TNC), 1976–1978, of social reproduction: a theoretical review,’ PAGASA. The Commoner, no. 5 (Autumn 2002): 1–22; 2.

45 Carl Lande, Leaders, Factions and Parties: 53 Kenneth Hewitt, Interpretations of Calamity The Structure of Philippine Politics (New (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 123–25. Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Monograph Series Number 6, 1966). 54 Robert Dirks, ‘Social responses during severe food shortages and famine,’Current 46 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 213. Anthropology, vol. 21, no. 1 (February 1980): 21–44; 27. 47 Abby Tan, ‘Typhoons, volcanos add pressure to Marcos.’ 55 ‘28 dead in floods and landslide as heavy rains lash Philippines,’ The Seattle Times, 28 48 ‘FL asks for aid to victims’; ‘Mrs Marcos June 1985. surveys damage, airs appeal,’ Philippine Daily Express, 21 May 1976. 56 Benson, The Economic Impact of Natural Disasters in the Philippines, 103–04.

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