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

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 91-111

  Bankoff, Greg ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

^b WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL INFLUENCE; DISASTER MANAGEMENT; PSYCHOLOGY; PUBLIC ATTITUDE; SEISMIC HAZARD; SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION;

ASIA; EURASIA; PHILIPPINES; SOUTHEAST ASIA;

EID: 33751264077     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463404000050     Document Type: Article

References (118)

1. John Aberth, From the brink of the apocalypse: Confronting famine, war, plague and death in the later Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2001)
2. and Andrew Cunningham and Ole Peter Grell, The four horsemen of the apocalypse: Religion, war, famine and death in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
3. The Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), which compiles one of the most comprehensive records on the occurrence of natural hazards in the world since 1900, credits the Philippines with more such events than any other country. CRED defines a disaster as an event requiring international assistance or causing ten deaths or affecting more than 100 persons.
4. A 1991 survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations reported that 86 per cent of Filipinos believed in God unreservedly, 8 per cent believed but expressed some doubts and another 2 per cent believed some of the time, while a further 3 per cent believed in some form of higher power; Mahar Mangahas, 'Belief in heaven and hell', Social Weather Bulletin, 96-15 (1996): 1.
5. On Judeo-Christian ideas about the human dominance of Nature, see Lynn White, 'The historical roots of our ecological crisis', Science, 155 (1967): 1203-7.
6. Denis Murphy, 'A belt of suffering', Manila Chronicle, 2 Nov. 1992;
7. Gerardo Sandoval, 'Public response to PAGASA typhoon warnings', Social Weather Bulletin, 94-5 (1994)
8. and Marcelo Tamayo, 'Can RP ever cope with disasters', Manila Bulletin, 17 Mar. 1993.
9. The 'Rim of Fire' volcanoes are also called 'The Ring of Fire'; Severo Catura, 'The Pinatubo disaster; Palliative solutions', Philippine Free Press, 83, 29 (1991): 6-8
10. and Edward Kiunisala, 'A year of calamities-II; Of volcanoes and earthquakes', Philippine Free Press, 83, 35 (1991): 18-19.
11. Rendy Isip, 'Pampanga vanishes', Manila Chronicle, 17 Sept. 1995.
12. On the 'surrender' of towns see Tamayo, 'Can RP ever cope'
13. and Michael Duen̄as, 'Season of calamities', Philippine Free Press, 83, 41 (1992): 16. Lahar is composed of pyroclastic materials and contains boulders, pebbles, sand, dust and gas in the form of a dense mud-like substance. Often heated to temperatures of 1000°C, such mudflows create a layer of expanding air in their advance that enable them to sweep along the ground at great speeds, sometimes in excess of 500 kilometres per hour. Objects in their path are either destroyed by direct impact or buried, with the encounter generally proving fatal to all living things.
14. 'Stormy weather', Asia Magazine, 28, 16 (1990): 10.
15. James Saspa, 'It was like an airplane exploding', Philippine Free Press, 87, 42 (1995): 6. In 1995 the Philippines was battered by a series of particularly destructive typhoons coming in close succession: Typhoon Mameng on 30 September, which tracked north-northwesterly through the Visayas and Luzon before exiting into the South China Sea; Typhoon Pepang between 28-29 October, whose sudden change in direction caused massive flooding in the unprepared provinces of Iloilo and Negros Occidental; and Super Typhoon Rosing on 2 November, which ravaged the same Western Visayan provinces struck by Pepang barely five days previously before raging across Southern and Central Luzon. Typhoon damage in 1995 amounted to more than P13.9 billion or more than 3.5 per cent of the national budget;
16. Sandra Aguinaldo et al., 'When calamities blow away economic gains', Business World, 17 Nov. 1995
17. and Nati Nuguid, 'A new wave', Philippine Free Press, 87, 42 (1995): 2.
18. Yawos-Silatan, 'Living witness of ecological destruction speaks', National Midweek, 7 Nov. (1991): 9.
19. In one sense, the broader interest in pre-colonial society has its origins in the influential writings of José Rizal, particularly his 1890 publication of an annotated edition of Antonio Morgas's Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, first published in 1609. Indigeneity was a marked feature in the lead-up to and celebration of the centennial celebrations of the 1896-8 Philippine Revolution that officially commenced in 1994; Greg Bankoff and Kathleen Weekley, Post-colonial national identity in the Philippines; Celebrating the centennial of independence (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2002).
20. Ramiro Alvarez, 'Perils of changing climate', Philippine Free Press, 83, 2 (1992): 26.
21. Murphy, 'Belt of suffering', p. 5.
22. Marien Ronquillo, 'Nature's wrath', Philippine Free Press, 85, 32 (1994): 9.
23. Camelita Canila, 'Prescription for disaster', National Midweek, 7, 7 (1992): 44.
24. The 'Calamity Cory' remark is in Kiunsala, 'Calamities-II', p. 18.
25. The flash flood that overtook the small eastern Visayan city of Ormoc on 5 Nov. 1991 killed more people than died in the Baquio earthquake, Typhoon Ruping and the Mt. Pinatubo eruption combined. Torrential rainfall at the height of a weak tropical cyclone dumped nearly 150 millimetres of rain onto the denuded mountain slopes above the city in a matter of a few hours. With less than 10 per cent of the natural tree cover remaining, an estimated 4 million cubic metres of water raced down through the cane-fields and merged with the swollen Anilao River. In a matter of minutes, water levels rose to over 6 metres in some parts of the city, while an unusually high tide prevented the flood from running straight out to sea. The whole episode was over in less than 15 minutes but between 80-90 per cent of the city's buildings were destroyed, with 5,365 people killed and another 2,046 missing. Most of the victims were residents of illegal riverbank settlements; see Marites Vitug, The politics of logging; Power from the forest (Manila: Philippine Center For Investigative Journalism, 1993).
26. Yawos-Silatan, 'Living witness', p. 9.
27. Jose Raymond and Dg Panaligan, 'Fury of the forest', Manila Chronicle, 30 Jan. 1994;
28. 'The sea disappeared, then the waves came', Philippine Free Press, 86, 48 (1994): 24, 25.
29. R. Kwan Laurel, 'The great flood of Ormoc', National Midweek, 27 Nov. 1991.
30. The same commentator noted that before any steps could be taken to rebuild the town, it would first have to brace itself for the visit of Imelda Romualdez Marcos as 'according to the law of Nature, wherever there are deaths, predators are sure to follow'! On 'crimes', see, for example, Gemma Corotan, 'Washed-away dreams', Manila Chronicle, 25 July 1992.
31. Yawos-Silatan, 'Living witness', p. 9;
32. see also Catura, 'Pinatubo disaster', p. 6
33. and P. Zapanata, 'A year of calamities and victories', Philippine Graphic, 2, 31 (1992): 11.
34. Francisco Barros et al., 'Disaster preparedness plan: Conquering Nature's tantrum', New Chronicle, 26 Apr. 1991;
35. Conrado Benitez, 'Predicting the weather through plants and fowls', Woman's Home Companion, 19, 36 (1991): 18
36. and Jose Bugarin, 'Inconstant sun causes contradictory weather', Manila Bulletin, 23 Feb. 1990.
37. 'Editorial: The end of El Niño', Philippine Star, 29 June 1992. Not, of course, that the ENSO phenomenon is exclusive to the Philippines but the cult of the Santo Niño is very popular among the Christian population of the archipelago.
38. 'Stormy weather', p. 13;
39. Aguinaldo et al., 'When calamities blow', p. 1. The practice of adopting female names was first begun by US aircraft and navy personnel assigned to detect and forecast cyclones in 1946. The foreign names used internationally to identify tropical cyclones are only employed as advisories to airlines and for navigation purposes in the Philippines.
40. Joan Dairo, 'Naming tropical cyclones: What romance and typhoons have in common ... Nothing sexist here', Malaya, 9 July 1995. The association between storms and the reputed capriciousness of women's minds is strongly denied by Dr Soriano: 'It is not the case that the unpredictability of typhoons, like women, is the reason for typhoons being given women's names' [Hindi totoong dahil pabago-bago ang isip bagyo tulad ng isang babae kung bakit binigyan sila ng pangalang babae].
41. David Chapman, Natural hazards (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 8.
42. Reynaldo Ileto, Pasyon and revolution: Popular movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979).
43. Kelvin Rodolfo, Pinatubo and the politics of lahar: Eruption and aftermath, 1991 (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1995), p. 39.
44. Eddie Villanueva, 'RP's disasters not incidental occurrences', Philippine Star, 7 Oct. 1995. The reference is to the giant statue of Mother Mary erected to commemorate the site where crowds gathered and listened to speeches during the February Revolution of 1986; it later became the rallying spot for the EDSA 2 demonstrations that led to the overthrow of President Joseph Estrada's government in January 2001. Brother Eddie Villanueva is Spiritual Director and International President of the Jesus Is Lord (JIL) Church, one of the fastest growing Christian churches in the world; the JIL styles itself as Pentecostal and rejects the veneration of the cult of Mary that is so prevalent among Catholics in the Philippines.
45. Lourdes Ignacio, 'From victims to survivors: The basic psycho-social issue in disaster', in Natural disaster mitigation in the Philippines: Proceedings of national conference on natural disaster mitigation 19-21 October 1994 (Quezon City: DOST-PHILVOLCS, 1994), pp. 263-6.
46. Anthony Oliver-Smith, The martyred city: Death and rebirth in the Peruvian Andes (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1992) (dependency)
47. and Peter Hodgkinson and Michael Stewart, Coping with catastrophe; A handbook of disaster management (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 18-21 (post-traumatic stress).
48. See also Paschalis Laksono, 'Perception of volcanic hazards: Villagers versus government officials in central Java', in The real and imagined role of culture in developments, ed. Michael Dove (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1988), p. 192.
49. 'Accounts of the eruption of various volcanoes', Archive of the Manila Observatory, Box-13, 8. The most notorious case of this type of mass hysteria actually occurred in the USA in 1938 when a radio serialisation of Herbert George Wells's War of the worlds led to the widespread belief that the Earth was under attack from Martians; Hadley Cantril, The invasion from Mars: A study In the psychology of panic, with the complete script of the famous Orson Wells broadcast (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1940).
50. J. Bersales and F. Nolasco, 'Higugmaa ang Diyos, kahadloki ang Diyos (Love God, fear God): Post-Ormoc disaster mass hysteria in an urban center', Aghamtao, 8 (1996): 45-50.
51. Miguel Selga, (1935) 'Tifonitis', Revista de la Sociedad Astronómica de España y América, 25, 176-7 (1935): 54-8.
52. Miguel Selga, Revista de la Sociedad Astronómica de España y América Ibid., p. 58.
53. Jaime C. Bulatao, Phenomena and their interpretation: Landmark essays 1957-1989 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1992), pp. 50-2. Tampo means letting people know you are annoyed at them by ignoring them, akin to giving someone the cold shoulder.
54. F. Landa Jocano, Growing up in a Philippine barrio (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 102.
55. See also L. Garcia, 'Some observations of the gaba phenomenon', Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 4 (1976).
56. Mayong, 'News about Mayong, the volcano of Albay', PHIVOLCS Library, M036, 1897, p. 2.
57. Leonardo Mercado, Applied Filipino philosophy (Tacloban: Divine World University Press, 1976), p. 184 (Luzon);
58. P. Alix, 'Ormoc revisited: Initial and long term stress reactions and coping responses of disaster victims', Aghamtao, 8 (1996): 29;
59. Bersales and Nolasco, 'Higugmaa ang Diyos', p. 52 (Cebu).
60. Otto van Kotzebue, Voyage of discovery in the South Sea, and to Behring's Straits, in search of a North-East passage undertaken in the years 1815, 16, 17, and 18 in the ship Rurick (London: Sir Richard Phillips & Co., 1821), p. 45.
61. The Mt. Mayon incident is in Félix de Huerta, Estado geográfico, topográfico, estádistico, histórico- religioso de la santa y apostólica provincia de S. Gregorio Magno (Binondo: Imprenta de M Sanchez y Co., 1863), pp. 256-7.
62. Rizal Ahmed, 'Weather update', Manila Times, 7 Nov. 1994 ('realities of life' and Kintanar grading)
63. and Alan Robles, 'National trauma: Prone to calamity, Filipinos may have developed their own coping mechanisms', Manila Chronicle, 3 Aug. 1991.
64. Canila,'Prescription for disaster', p. 16.
65. Bankoff, Cultures of disaster, pp. 162-6.
66. Kees Jansen, Political ecology, mountain agriculture, and knowledge in Honduras (Wageningen: Proefschrift ter Verkrijging van de Graad van Doctor, 1998), pp. 171-8.
67. Piers Blaikie et al., At risk: Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 64.
68. J. Fleishman, 'Personality characteristics and coping patterns', Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 25 (1984): 229-44.
69. Ahmed, 'Weather update'; small boat owners, of course, have the added incentive of making some extra money.
70. F. Landa Jocano, Working with Filipinos; A cross-cultural encounter (Metro Manila: PUNLAD Research House, 1999), p. 70.
71. This sense of life as a supreme game of chance is most fully developed in Filomeno Aguilar, Clash of spirits: The history of power and sugar planter hegemony on a Visayan island (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998).
72. Cynthia Bautista, 'Social constructions of the Mt. Pinatubo disaster: Preliminary insights into the culture and politics of disaster in the Philippines', paper presented at Wageningen University and Research Centre, 21 Nov. 2000.
73. Greg Bankoff, 'Devils, familiars and Spaniards: Spheres of power and the supernatural in the world of Seberina Candelaria and her village in early nineteenth century Philippines', Journal of Social History, 33, 1 (1999): 37-55.
74. Laksono, 'Perception of volcanic hazards', pp. 189, 192-3;
75. see also William Tony, 'Natural disasters, social structure and change in traditional societies', Journal of Asian and African Studies, 13, 3-4 (1978): 177-8.
76. Bautista, 'Social constructions';
77. Amor Lopez, 'Mt Pinatubo's aftermath; The new landscape: Desert?', Philippine Panorama, 20, 36 (1991): 20.
78. Alix, 'Ormoc revisited', pp. 29-30;
79. Jocano is quoted in Robles, 'National trauma', p. 1, 6.
80. Jocano, Working with Filipinos, p. 66; I am indebted to Dr Jose Dalisay of the English Department at the University of the Philippines and Dr Noelle Rodriguez of the History Department at Ateneo de Manila for helping clarify these concepts.
81. Jocano, Growing up, pp. 96-8
82. and Jocano, Slum as a way of life: A study of coping behaviour in an urban environment (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1975), pp. 166-87.
83. R. Cola, 'The needs of children following a disaster: The 1990 earthquake in the Philippines', Disasters, 17, 3 (1993): 250-3 (Baguio);
84. Barros et al., 'Disaster preparedness plan', p. 14 (public response);
85. Rubles, 'National trauma", pp. 1, 6 (Benguet);
86. and Bautista, 'Social constructions' (Pinatubo).
87. Blaikie et al., At risk, p. 67.
88. Robles, 'National trauma', p. 1, 6;
89. the 'Pinagtubuan' joke is in Rodolfo, Pinatubo, p. 88.
90. Alix, 'Ormoc revisited', pp. 39-40;
91. Mayong, 'News about Mayong', p. 8.
92. Miguel Selga, (1938) 'La cronología popular en la designación de temporales y terremotos', Urania, 28, 206 (1938): 66
93. and Miguel Selga, 'La cronología popular en la designación de temporales y terremotos', Urania 28, 207 (1938): 74. Selga also notes how typhoons in the Philippines were normally named after the ships that were caught at sea by them or by the islands that suffered the most damages. Some of the most notorious typhoons were called after the ships Gravina, Cantabria, Tarloc, Leyte, Quantico, Negros and Euzkadi, and after the islands of Samar and Leyte, Cebu, Ilocos and the Batanes.
94. Robles, 'National trauma', p. 1, 6.
95. Edwin Decenteceo, Rehab: Psychosocial rehabilitation for social transformation; some programs and concepts (Quezon City: Bukal, 1997), pp. 83-101.
96. Rubin Makalintal, 'Not an act of God; Natural calamities are brought about by Man', Manila Bulletin, 21 Nov. 1991.
97. Michael Duen̄as, 'Coping with the Pinatubo disaster', Philippine Free Press, 83, 28 (1991): 12-5.
98. The archipelago had 63 synoptic stations in 1995 but operations in two, Sulu and Cotabato, were suspended because of the precarious law and order situation in those provinces and the equipment in the others was outdated and slow. There were too few telemetering stations to measure rainfall levels and forecast floods effectively, some provinces having only one and Mindanao without any. ('All we can do is guess whether or not there will be floods in the area depending on the strength of rains that hit them.') Of even greater concern was the inoperativeness of half the ten radar stations used in the location and tracking of tropical storms and that only two of the four radiosondes used for measuring humidity at different levels of the atmosphere had the necessary balloons to permit them to carry out this function. Joan Dairo, 'Forecasting the weather; How accurate is PAGASA', Malaya, 9 July 1995.
99. Eddee Castro, 'More accurate weather info system bared', Manila Bulletin, 9 June 1990. PAGASA now uses a four-level warning system based on the wind speed of storms expected within 12-18 hours: Signal Number 1 for 30-60kph (kilometres per hour) winds, Signal Number 2 for 60-100kph, Signal Number 3 for 100-185kph and Signal 4 for over 185kph, the latter being first raised on 27 Oct. 1991 when Typhoon Trining hit Northern Luzon.
100. Emelina Almario, ed. Disasters: The Philippine experience (Quezon City: Citizens Disaster Response Center, 1992), p. 41. An ASEAN Meteorological Center has also been established in Singapore to better predict weather disturbances in the region but the provision of accurate advanced information remains difficult due to rapidly changing weather conditions. The Governors' statement is in
101. Sandoval, 'Public response to PAGASA', p. 1.
102. In the 1992 survey, 79 per cent of respondents found a sample PAGASA public warning easy to comprehend and 73 per cent admitted that they would base their decision to evacuate their homes on such a bulletin. An example of the warning used was that issued for Typhoon Trining at 11 a.m. on 27 Oct. 1991: 'Typhoon Trining has slightly weakened and has changed direction. It is now moving towards Cagayan. Typhoon Trining is expected to move west-southwest at a speed of 19km/hr and is also expected to hit the Cagayan area this afternoon. The center is expected to be a distance of 280km west northwest of Aparri, Cagayan or to be at a distance of 180 km west northwest of Laoag City tomorrow morning at 8.00AM. It is expected to move west-northwest starting tonight and will slow down in the next 12 hours' (Sandoval, 'Public response to PAGASA' ibid., p. 3).
103. Sandoval, 'Public response to PAGASA' Ibid. p. 6. The socio-economic classification of ABCDE equates A with owners of capital or land, company chairpersons and other elite groups; B with professionals and other high-salaried groups; C with white-collar and specialised tradespersons; D with blue-collar labour; E with under-employed or unemployed, students, disabled, retired persons etc. Sometimes a distinction is made between educated C1s with the same tastes and buying preferences as ABs and C2s with distinctive buying patterns but often higher disposal incomes than C1s.
104. Michael Duen̄as, 'No end in sight', Philippine Free Press, 83, 42 (1992): 14.
105. Duen̄as, 'Season of calamities', pp. 16-17.
106. Robles,'National trauma', pp. 1, 6.
107. Jocano, Working with Filipinos, p. 71. Utang na loob involves a sense of reciprocity and is often considered a cornerstone of the social fabric of Filipino society; it does, however, also entail a sense of obligation in return.
108. See Rubles, 'National trauma', pp. 1, 6; I am presently engaged in research on this topic, the results of which will appear shortly in a series of forthcoming publications.
109. Albert Lee, 'Global warming: Its impact on the country', Panorama, 20,7 (1991): 14.
110. An El Niño event occurs when normal atmospheric pressures over the Pacific shift and the easterly winds (blowing westward) slacken and even reverse. Sea levels in the western Pacific begin to fall and warm water slips back towards South America, depressing the thermocline (the buffer zone between the upper layer of water and the frigid ocean abyss) and disrupting upwelling along the continent's west coast. Warmer sea surface temperature over much of equatorial eastern and central Pacific (sometimes 2-3°C higher) heats the air above it, causing convection, clouds and rain. As this warmer air has moved east of its usual position, colder drier air that usually descends over the oceans also shifts further eastward, descending instead over Australia/Southeast Asia and Africa, lowering rainfall levels and triggering drought. At the same time, sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific rise and are often accompanied by unusually heavy rainfall activity along the western seaboard of the Americas. M. Dilley and B. Heyman, 'ENSO and disaster: Droughts, floods and El Niño/Southern Oscillation warm events', Disasters, 19, 30 (1995): 181-2;
111. PAGASA Primer on El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (Quezon City: PAGASA, Department of Science and Technology, Climatology and Agrometeorology Branch, 1997), p. 2;
112. and UNEP, The El Niño phenomenon (Nairobi: UNEP/GEM Environment Library No. 8, 1992), pp. 14-15.
113. Dona Pazzibugan, 'El Niño effect: Prices of chicken soar', Philippine Daily Inquirer, 17 June 1998 〈www.inquirer.net/issues/may98/ may20/news/news_4.htm〉.
114. Jowel Canuday, 'La Niña here, says PAGASA", Philippine Daily Inquirer, 13 Sept. 1998 〈www.inquirer.net/issues/sep98/sep07/news/news_11. htm〉.
115. Kenneth Hewitt, ed., Interpretations of calamity from the viewpoint of human ecology (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1983).
116. Bankoff, Cultures of disaster, pp. 179-83.
117. Interview with Isaias Panganiban Jr, Deputized Civil Defense Officer, Municipality of Guagua, Pampanga', 11 Oct. 2002.
118. Greg Bankoff, 'A history of poverty: The politics of natural disasters in the Philippines, 1985-1995', The Pacific Review, 12, 3 (1999): 381-420.