October 5, 2020
Poverty and Informal Housing in Manila
The Philippines, due to its geographical location in the Ring of Fire and the Typhoon belt, gets affected by a variety of natural hazards every year such as typhoons, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Additional stresses like droughts and sea level rise (caused by climate change), and land subsidence due to excess groundwater extraction, contribute to lowering Manila’s resilience even further. Informal housing, however, is one of the main factors that contribute to lowering the resilience of the city to the multiple natural resources that it is prone to. The urban poor of Manila usually live in informal settlements due to the lack of availability of affordable housing and the increase of unplanned urban migration. This sector of society is therefore the most affected by disasters. Due to the lack of availability of resources before, during and after the occurrence of a natural event, dwellers of informal settlements are significantly more vulnerable to the effects of shocks. For this same reason, they have a lower ability to recover afterwards, which consequently increases their vulnerability to the next natural disaster due to the high recurrence of such events in the region. Furthermore, low to non-existent government intervention in these communities leads to malfunctioning drainage and sanitation systems, which end up affect the city as a whole as they contribute to pump station blockage and surface water pollution in cases of flooding. On the other hand, government interventions involving resettlement plans tend to fail due to lack of popular consultation and community involvement in the decision-making process. Successful relocation plans could significantly reduce the vulnerability of these communities to natural disaster since they would reduce population density in Metro Manila, move the communities to lower risk and more geologically stable areas, and reduce surface water pollution in the city due to better waste management. Proper relocation plans by the government could therefore have a great impact in improving the overall resilience of Manila, but community participation and consultation is primordial for the efforts to be successful. Additional proposed solutions, as well as supplementary resources are provided including reference literature and understanding/discussion questions related to the topics discussed in the report. Answers to the understanding questions are provided separately for lecturers.