Threats of flooding, everytime there is a tropical depression or typhoon, have made me decide to share here the highlights of an article I submitted to Philippine Sociological Review, the official journal of the Philippine Sociological Society. Incidentally, this special issue on disaster is yet for release in October 2015.
My article examines the role of kinship networks in the resiliency to perennial flooding of riverside communities based on a study I did some years ago along Pagatban River located between Basay and Bayawan City in Negros Oriental. Again on 5 August 2015, affected residents of Barangay Pagatban were advised to evacuate to avoid the threat of flood due to the high accumulated rains for several days by habagat which was enhanced by super typhoon Hannah.
Kinship network is defined as the array of relatives within and outside the community classified by consanguinity or blood relatives and affinity as well as those established through religious ritual such as sponsorship in weddings and baptisms. This network becomes potential sources of assistance during natural disasters. On the other hand, resiliency means the ability to recover from natural disasters and to return to normal state until the next similar or different disastrous events.
I argue in this article that assistance through kinship network enhances household resiliency because flash flooding and overflowing of water have differential impacts and pressures on households settled along the different sections of the river. The variable impact of flooding, which is geographically determined, allows less vulnerable households to provide assistance to those heavily affected within their kinship network. This is particularly true to lower-income households in more devastated communities.
Three analytical conjectures are evident from the findings of my study.
First, the benefits of communities from the river are predominantly those resources that the respondents have directly used. These include protein food, transportation route, construction materials, water for domestic and farm use, and its potential for tourism related activities. They also articulated their fears of losing again these resources if the mining operation in an upstream barangay will be restored although this was once the major industry that brought instant economic boom to the host and surrounding communities.
The respondents understood from experience and observation how the normal functioning of the river was drastically altered by mining effluents in terms of its flow and quality of water. Pagatban River became silted and filled with poisonous substance and contaminants that destroyed riverine and estuarine organisms. And the respondents felt that the ultimate and drastic impact of a damaged river is the loss of its direct economic benefits that have bearing on their survival.
Second, the respondents have expressed awareness about the impact of human activities to ecosystem services. Flash flooding and overflowing of the river that are seriously felt by the midstream households, because they are located in the most silted section, are annual reminders of how mining continues to make an impact on their current lives. Respondents also identified poison fishing, cutting of trees for producing charcoal, and small-scale mining as causes of river quality’s deterioration. They realized that they are partly accountable for the perennial flood they face now and not only the past mining operation.
Third, the households of the respondents along the midstream and downstream sections have learned to anticipate and adapt to flash floods in the absence of major mitigations installed or implemented by the local government units like dredging and building of dikes to prevent overflowing of water. They only evacuated to elevated areas nearby when they anticipated that the water would overflow but returned to their respective houses when the conditions had already improved.
The resiliency of these households is seen in their ability to rebuild their houses and return to their respective livelihoods hoping to compensate or recover the losses during the next harvesting season. Those who suffered a lot, particularly the midstream households, the assistance received from kinship network in the form of money, food and labor because their crops have been badly damaged, had helped to bring themselves back on the ground.
The assistance from kinship networks is most prevalent among midstream households because they are more vulnerable and badly affected by floods. Kinship network fill the gap of insufficient relief goods received from government, which are often limited and selectively distributed to heavily affected populations. This social support has proven to be the most reliable source of assistance when an ecosystem which offered goods and services for sustenance under normal times have failed during disasters and turned violent against the people.
Thus, the cultural orientation that “charity begins at home” or of securing one’s own family first before helping others, which is true to perceived clan-oriented values among Filipinos, describes the adaptive significance of kinship network for disaster relief at the community level. And the inspiration from kinship network can be capitalized to strengthen the functioning of the community-based disaster preparedness program of local government units.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
