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

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A Tale of Two Decades: Typhoons and Floods, Manila and theProvinces, 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

Background: Meteorology

In the second half of the twentieth century,typhoon-triggered floods affected all sectors ofsociety in the Philippines, but none more sothan the urban poor, particularly the esteros-dwellers or shanty-town inhabitants, residing inthe low-lying locales of Manila and a number ofother cities on Luzon and the Visayas. Thegrowing number of post-war urban poor inManila, Cebu City and elsewhere, was largelydue to the policy repercussions of rapideconomic growth and impoverishment underthe military-led Marcos regime.1 At this time inthe ear l y 1970s , rura l pover ty andenvironmental devastation increased rapidly,and on a hitherto unknown scale in thePhilippines. Widespread corruption, cronycapitalism and deforesting the archipelagocaused large-scale forced migration,homelessness and a radically skeweddistribution of income and assets thatcontinued to favour elite interests.2

The tai fung, the great wind or typhoon, hasalso been the scourge of Japan for centuries.Traditionally, typhoons, along with floods andfamines, have played a major role in Japanesestatecraft as signs of the gods’ displeasure withcurrent political leadership, and sometimesresulting in sudden political change andupheaval. From the end of the nineteenthcentury the cost of damage caused by thesetropical storms escalated as Japanesedevelopment and industrialisation increased.

The typhoons and floods that occurred in theMarcos years were labelled ‘natural disasters’by the authorities in Manila. But in fact, itwould have been more appropriate to labelthem un-natural, or man-made disastersbecause of the nature of politics in thoseunsettling years. The typhoons and floods ofthe 1970s and 1980s, which took a huge toll inlives and left behind an enormous trail ofphysical destruction and other impacts afterthe waters receded, were caused as much bythe interactive nature of politics with theenvironment, as by geography and thetyphoons per se, as the principal cause ofnatural calamity. The increasingly variablenature of the weather and climate was acatalyst, but not the sole determinant of thedestruction and hidden hazards that couldlinger for years in the aftermath of thetyphoons and floods in the Marcos years.3

Habibul Haque Khondker notes in hisexamination of the relationship between thegreat November cyclone of 1970, in theBangladesh case, and the subsequent politicalcrisis, that the political environment and anatural disaster can, and often do, interact withone another.4

Nowhere was this link between politics andcalamity more evident than in flood-strickenManila throughout the 1970s and early 1980swhen Imelda Marcos, in her capacity as MetroManila Governor, was in charge. It was againsta background of physical devastation andflooding in July 1972 caused by TyphoonGloring, that a 500 million pesos Calamity FundBill was eventually passed through the

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Philippine House of Representatives andSenate. No one knew exactly when the nextextreme typhoon or flood would hit the capitaland create a national disaster on economic andhumanitarian grounds. But once the CalamityFund Bill was law, the President, his First ladyand their party would control and manipulatethe use of the 500 million pesos relief fundprimarily for their political purposes andpersonal self interest. The bloated emergencyrelief fund would enable them not only to payserious attention to the handling of futuretyphoon crises but also to win political supportand elections in the process too. Indeed, from apurely political standpoint, Ferdinand andImelda Marcos and their political backers werethe prime beneficiaries of the Calamity Fundmeasure.

Background: The Marcos Years

This paper examines the impact of typhoons,which cause floods resulting in widespreaddeath and damage, as a key political aspect inthe thinking and administration of the Marcosgovernment. The impact of a typhoon-relatednatural disaster on Philippine society andpolitics in the 1970s depended upon two sets offactors: namely, the political and materialcapacity of the government to react to thedisaster and the relevant aspects of thepolitical culture. These include: the extent towhich the responsibility of preparing for anddealing with a disaster is specific andunderstood; the citizen’s previous perceptionsof the government and the degree to whichthey change their perceptions; and the extentto which a natural disaster is considered tohave a legitimate political value.

On 21 September 1972, several months afterthe enormous tragedy called Typhoon Gloringhad swept across the archipelago, PresidentMarcos, who had been elected in 1965, and re-elected in 1969, declared martial law. He actednot specifically because of the typhoon, butrather because of widespread economic

uncertainty, the threat of rebellion in thecountryside and possible succession inMindanao. Marcos launched a radical newsocial agenda under the provisions of martiallaw. He established new government structuresand agencies, abolished others previouslyresponsible for planning and execution ofeconomic functions, and implemented arevolutionary social welfare programme aimedat restructuring society. In 1972, he alsointroduced a strategy of balanced economicgrowth and a genuine agrarian reformprogramme. His ‘new society’ was to be basedon an innovative system of government thatwould respond to the needs of ordinary people,w h i c h h e c a l l e d ‘ c o n s t i t u t i o n a lauthoritarianism’. 5

Figure 1. Famous photograph of the latePhilippine President Marcos declaringmartial law (21 September 1972).

Source. Robert JA Basilio Jr, ‘Five thingsDonald Draper and Ferdinand Marcos have incommon,’ Jack The Scribbler (9 September2 0 1 2 ) , o n l i n e :http://jackthescribbler.com/2010/01/five-things-donald-draper-and-ferdinand-marcos-have-in-common/, accessed 14 August 2013.

Marcos, however, was unsuccessful in curbingthe widespread political influence and activity

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of the old economic oligarchs, who skilfullysurvived Marcos’ onslaught to reform ‘the sickold society’.6 The new society was meant toredistribute wealth and property, but the oldoligarchs soon joined forces with others whohad gained access to the levers of economicpower as a direct consequence of the newsociety. By the mid-1970s, the politics of thetransition from the old to the new society wasto prove far more difficult and complex thanFerdinand Marcos had anticipated and hisauthoritarian rule served to both intensify ‘theincreasingly negative impact of clientelism’7

and constrain the ‘beneficial effects of foreignloans and aid on the community.’8 Indeed,Cheng-tian Kuo suggests that ‘foreign loanshave been regarded by political leaders as easymoney for rewarding their clients.’9

Figure 2. Sunday Express front page afterMarcos declared martial law (September1972).

Source. Maytpapa, ‘A Childhood in the Time ofMartial Law, Society Magazine (22 September2 0 1 1 ) , o n l i n e :http://en.paperblog.com/a-childhood-in-the-time-of-martial-law-69557/, accessed 14 August2012.

As ‘the overcentralised government undermilitary rule began to atrophy,’ DavidTimbermann explains that ‘favouritism andveniality became rampant’ and the economywas adversely affected by ‘mounting corruptionand mismanagement.’10 Amelia P. Varela claimsthat both ‘graft and corruption reached its alltime high [and] permeated most aspects ofbureaucratic life and institutions which saw thestart of the systematic plunder of the country.’11

Indeed, under Marcos, both corruption andmoney laundering formed a ‘symbioticrelationship,’12 that was reliant on the Marcosgovernment retaining power. Typhoon-baseddisasters gave his administration ampleopportunity to both tout for political supremacyat the expense of the opposition and to add tohis mounting personal wealth.

In the post-war period, the Philippinesexperienced high rates of population growthand a level of rural-urban migration of five percent persisted throughout the 1960s. Thereluctance and/or inability of the landed elite toremedy serious social and economic problemsin the provinces, so evident in the failure ofagrarian reform, led to ever-higher levels ofrural-urban migration, especially to Manila.The population of the archipelago grew fromeleven million in 1948 to 27 million in 1960 andto almost 37 million by 1970; by then one thirdof the population, which had almost doubled inless than a quarter of a century, wasconcentrated in Manila and nine adjoiningprovinces on Luzon.13 This exacerbated thealready long-standing socio-economicmarginalisation of the masses.

In Manila, migrants were largely absorbed into

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various low-income service occupations. Themajority of these new urbanites in the early1970s belonged to Manila’s lower class, orslum society. They generally lacked technicalskills and took up occupations as domesticservants, labourers, hawkers, jeepney drivers,entertainers, or prostitutes and they filledminor clerical positions and owned virtually noresidential property in the city.14

The exponential growth of the population andthe rate of rural-urban migration exerted addedpressure upon an already inadequate publicsanitation system and thereby increased healthhazards, especially the possible outbreak ofdiarrheal diseases due to storm-relatedflooding. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos wouldattempt to establish local programs for publicsanitation and health (refuse, litter, water andsewage pollution) to transform Manila into aclean and beautiful city that would attracttourism and trans-national capital. Besidesconstruction of world-class hotels, conventionand cultural centres, they established somewell-equipped hospitals and clinics staffed withskilled physicians and nurses. Chain drugstores were also located in strategic placesnear the hospitals, schools, shopping malls andheavy-commuting areas. But, the nameless andfaceless urban poor, who lived in theirthousands in squatter communities along theesteros, were not part of the Marcos campaignand programs to embellish the face of Manila.

There was a cruel contradiction, albeit irony,between the generally clean, quiet and orderlyatmosphere proclaimed in travel guides, touradvertisements and billboards, depictingManila as a global city where economicprogress went hand in hand with thedeveloping social reality of a burgeoning rural-urban migrant population. Many of the globe-trotting tourists and overseas executivesvisiting the city’s business district were notfully aware of the scope and rate of the adversechanges that were taking place in Manila, asthe metropolis rapidly grew and poor people

struggled to cope with its consequences. Butthe government-sponsored promotion of theremarkable transformation of the city, from apreviously alarming and deteriorating place toa vibrant, expanding metropole proved a cruelillusion—a false dream—for the tens ofthousands of squatters confronting the problemof a lack of housing and related health impacts,in one of the third world’s fastest growingcities. Most of the comfortably-housed wealthylocals and foreign visitors rarely wentanywhere near the burgeoning slum quarters ofthe city. But Makati’s tree-lined avenues andglass-lined skyscrapers cast shadows across themakeshift houses of squatters from rural areasliving at overcrowded addresses that did notappear in in fo rmat ion prov ided onrecommended tours and general guide maps.The migrants from the provinces threatenedwith homelessness dwelled out of sight of thepath of the capital’s crushing progress, butthey lived within its interstices and invulnerable areas; low-lying neighbourhoodsoften sited directly in the path of typhoons andprone to flooding.

Figure 3. Marginal urban enclave of SiteoBaseco, Tondo.

S o u r c e . O n l i n e :http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2611/3738095867_81ec1e7611.jpg, accessed 14 August 2013;cited in Doracie B. Zoleta‐Nantes, ‘Disasters

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and megacities: critical geographies of floodhazards & social inequities in the case of MetroManila,’ seminar paper 716.pdf (Canberra:Crawford School, College of Asia and thePacific, the Australian National University,n.d.).

Storms: A Chronology: 1970s–1980s

Here, I want to examine the interactiverelationship between the spate of typhoons andf l o o d s i n t h e 1 9 7 0 s a n d e a r l y1980s—particularly Typhoon Gloring—and thenature of politics and the subsequent politicalcrises, and, how the political environment anda natural disaster can interact with oneanother.15 The typhoons of the 1970s causedchaos across the archipelago, cutting powerlines, disrupting trade and transport anddisplacing hundreds of thousands of people. Inthe early 1970s, the Philippines received itsstrongest warning yet that shifts in climate andweather patterns were creating the likelihoodof a turbulent future of more intense stormsand devastating floods with mass destructionand displacement. The warnings began whenTyphoon Meding crossed Luzon on Mondaymorning, 31 August 1970. It rained for almost aweek after which greater Manila, and centraland southern Luzon were under water forweeks. Less than three months later, TyphoonYoling hit Manila on 19 November 1970.However, when Typhoon Gloring devastatedLuzon between 10 and 25 July 1972, the entirenation was struck by the tragedy. TyphoonNorming, struck between 15 and 16 August1974, and Typhoon Didang, came alongbetween 16 and 27 May 1976 and yet againManila was flooded. Typhoon Yaning hit centralLuzon on 9 October 1978 (see Table 1).

Year Date Typhoon1970 31 August Meding1970 19 November Yoling1972 10–25 July Gloring1974 15–16 August Norming

1976 16–27 May Didang1978 9 October Yaning1984 August June1984 September Ike

Table 1. List of typhoons in the 1970s and1980s that caused

chaos across the archipelago during thepresidency of Marcos.

By the early 1980s, the economic and socialimpacts of typhoons added to the mountingpolitical pressure against the increasinglybeleaguered government of Ferdinand Marcos.Two typhoons, in August and September 1984,unleashed the worst calamities to hit thearchipelago in fourteen years. Typhoon June,which hit the northern Philippines in lateAugust, and Typhoon Ike, which lashed a widearea of the central and southern Philippines afew days later, killed 1556 people, injured morethan one thousand and left more than 1500missing.16 In its rampage across the southernPhilippines, Typhoon Ike left 200,000 homelessas houses were either flattened or blown awayby high winds or destroyed by floods. Schoolswere similarly affected. Although the officiallyconfirmed death toll on 4 September was 332,the Mayor of Surigao, Constantino Navarro,stated that one thousand people had beenkilled in his city alone. He told reporters thatthe city had run out of coffins and embalmingfluid and had to bury the dead in mass gravesin an effort to prevent the spread of disease.17

It is set against this background of PresidentMarcos attempting to radically transform thepolitical system after 1972 that Filipinos couldnot afford to think about the climate and recentweather phenomena as necessarily unchangingor ‘normal’. The weather, like politics, wassusceptible to change. Marcos and thepersonnel of the Philippine Weather Bureau,particularly Dr. Ramon Kintanar, its youthful,articulate director, were to painfully learn thatthe weather of the 1970s was not typical of the

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previous fifty years—and its patterns were evenless typical of the previous several centuries. Infact, climate and weather throughout the 1970sproved to be more variable and unpredictablethan that of the decades just prior to 1970, tofurther complicate matters.

Weather services had been neglected by asuccession of post-war governments so theBureau could not initiate development projects,purchase new equipment or hire more trainedpersonnel.18 However, on 8 December 1972,President Marcos, now all too painfully awareof the tremendous importance of the weatherservices and all ied seismological andastronomical activities to national development,passed an act abolishing the Weather Bureauand in its place, established the PhilippineAtmospheric, Geophysical and AstronomicalServices and Administration (PAGASA). ThePAGASA was entrusted with ‘providingenvironmental protection and utilisingscientific knowledge as an effective instrumentto ensure the safety, well-being and economicsecurity of all the people, and for the promotionof national progress.’19 Most importantly,administrative control of the agency wastransferred from the Department of Commerceand Industry to the Department of NationalDefence.

Both Kintanar and Marcos hoped that thecoming years would prove truly remarkable forthe scientific and technological development ofmeteorology and reliable operationalforecasting across the islands. As part of theMarcos government’s high modernist project,PAGASA had gone digital and meteorologicalscientists would use satellite transmissions andsophisticated computer models to study and‘tame’ the typhoon. PAGASA began toundertake a broad-risk mapping of typhoonsand f l ood -p rone a reas began t o beidentified—based on topography and historicalrainfall patterns.20

Storms and Floods: Impact

The typhoons and floods of the 1970s broughtthe national ‘quick-fix’ relief aid syndrome toManila and right to the sometime-floodeddoorsteps of the seat of power at MalacanangPalace. The Marcos regime, from a purelypolitical standpoint, could only think aboutshort-term effects, rather than thinking andoperating on longer-term environmental scalesin dealing with urban flooding as a serious andgrowing development challenge for Manila.

At the height of Typhoon Gloring, Ferdinandand Imelda Marcos blamed a particular sectorof the urban poor for not having a basic humanasset, namely shelter and a bit of land to till.They had failed to solve the long and troubledhistory of agrarian land reform and in theirattempts remake society from the bottom upblamed some of the desperate peasantsarriving in Manila, seeking a safe roof overtheir heads and good fortune. The massiveinflux of landless, destitute migrants to Manilaand the prol i feration of shanty-towndevelopments had led to canals and water-catchment areas being swallowed up and builton by the urban poor. Marcos blamed theincessant storm-related flooding on garbage inthe choked esteros and swollen creeks blockingthe city’s sewers. He appealed to the urbanpoor not to clog up the canals and sewagesystems with their refuse. But, in reality, thesocial and environmental impacts of theTyphoon Gloring floods in Manila were amicrocosm of a much larger national problem.There was not adequate affordable housing andemployment for the displaced migrant poorfrom the provinces. Hence, they built theirhouses and shacks out of necessity in a pell-mell manner without concern for degrading thesurrounding environment—an environmentwhere regulation had been equally ignored bythe kingpins of the construction industry, theprincipal real-estate speculators and theindustrial strongmen who ran the localfactories with complete disregard for MetroManila’s environment, but especially for thePasig River, irrigated rice paddies and water

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catchment areas. These economically powerfulgroups, far more so than the poor migrantsfrom rural areas, were creating ever larger‘ecological footprints’ around Manila whichwere not, in the long run, sustainable. Marcoscertainly was serious about introducing anethic of environmental responsibility butprimarily for political reasons. In a pragmaticattempt to direct attention away from thedeveloping impacts of his cronies’ ‘ecologicalfootprints’ in Manila and beyond, hecalculatingly blamed the esteros dwellers andurban poor.

Centuries earlier, when floods washed overManila, the water would ordinarily subsidewithin a few days. Now, in the 1970s, with somuch of the capital under asphalt, the sewerscrumbling and developers having built overvital soak ways, the water was trapped. Duringthese years, as with the Filipino public at large,Mani la’s c i t izens were not given theopportunity to be directly involved in theplanning and redistribution of typhoon andflood relief aid that would drastically affect thefuture of their lives for better or worse.

The urban congestion caused by the post-warmigration as livelihoods and natural resourcesdisappeared in the islands, had led to thedevelopment of squatter communities onmarshy lowlands, vacant lots or unusedagricultural land close to Manila. The shantyhousing was highly individual, substandard andoften constructed from salvaged materials,including scrap metal, discarded timber andcardboard. Water for cooking and drinking hadto be hauled from distant standpipes, andkerosene was generally used for lighting andfuel. Garbage and human waste were oftendisposed of in drainage ditches, nearby bays orrivers close to where the makeshift structureshad been erected.21

Every year during the typhoon season (July toNovember) President Marcos controlled a citythat swam in filth. Large areas of Manila were

sited on low-lying land, generally below sealevel, and the fetid streets were prone toflooding. At the same time, some firms andfactories were simply dumping untreated wasteinto nearby water systems; the very samesystems that were being used to sustain themushrooming migrant population. Unlike thenineteenth century when the water drainedaway unimpeded, the typhoon-driven floodsfrom the 1970s onwards not only inundated themany new slum and squatter communities butalso many middle-class residential complexesand the lingering polluted waters could takeweeks to subside.

Delays in the implementation of a flood-controlproject in Metro Manila in the aftermath ofTyphoon Gloring had driven the project cost upfrom the original estimate of 236 million pesosto nearly one billion pesos. This estimatecovered only the infrastructure aspect of anenvisaged three-billion-pesos flood-controlproject. Various sources besides the congresshad been tapped to raise the necessary fundsfor a flood-control system, including a 0.25peso tax on cinema goers, a proposed one-eighth of one per cent real estate tax, a floatingcasino and the sale of one billion pesos worth ofreclaimed land in the Manila Bay area. Themovie tax had generated over 50 million pesossince December 1972, but Metro Manilaresidents did not reap its benefits. The floodsgot worse year by year. But from the standpointof political economy, flood-control was essentialfor Metro Manila which accounted for almosthalf the country’s Gross National Product(GNP).22

By 1976, workers had started to removeobstacles which blocked the flow of floodwateralong the esteros, drainage mains and otheroutlets into the Pasig River and Manila Bay.Unfortunately, the floods triggered by TyphoonDidang in May 1976 came before thecompletion of work on three pumping stationsfor the Metro Manila area, which would serveas major outlets for waters coming from the

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areas of Quiapo, Sampaloc, San Miguel andnearby places. The city’s only other pumpingstation (the fourth one), recently inaugurated,was temporarily rendered useless by waterlilies that clogged its outlet to the Pasig River.Typhoon Didang’s impact highlighted the lackof drainage, operational pumping stations andthe dire necessity of establishing a new fundfor the flood-control system.23

General Government Responses: FerdinandMarcos

Greg Bankoff, in his exploration of the politicsof recent natural disasters in the Philippines,has investigated the correlation betweennatural disasters and the way power andwealth are articulated in the Philippines.24

Under Marcos the convergence of interests andactivities leading to control of the pattern andpersonnel involved in the administration ofavailable disaster relief was a blatant, albeitcomplex, political issue and problem, whichinvolved bureaucrats, military personnel, entirecommunities, trans-national donors and marketinterests. Bankoff notes in his discussion of theway some people profited at the expense ofothers from the impacts of a natural disaster,that extreme typhoons, like Gloring, providedan ideal opportunity for Marcos supporters topolitically grandstand and financially profitf rom the s i tuat ion. They personal lyredistributed relief materials to theirconstituencies while taking full advantage ofthe widespread devastation and deprivation toattack political opponents in similarlythreatened communities for their seeming lackof assistance. The manipulation of disaster-relief funds by the Marcos politicians, and theirability to reap political and social capital fromtheir risk management of floods, depended to acertain extent on the control and manipulationof the media. As Bankoff notes, in such states ofemergency, ‘Political concern with the victimsof natural disasters tends to follow the sameebb and flow as that of the media: muchconcern and many promises during the first

days of rescue and relief but waning politicalsupport during the hard years of reconstructionand rehabilitation that follow.’25

A typhoon or flood disaster could turn animpoverished region characterised by scarcityinto a ‘disaster boom economy’.26 A classic casein point was Typhoon Meding. Marcos’handling of this typhoon and the associatedfloods helped revive his flagging politicalfortunes prior to the declaration of martial law.The winds o f Typhoon Meding werecomparatively mild, but unrelenting rain forfive days caused damaging floods. On 2September 1970, greater Manila and centralLuzon suffered widespread devastation,economic damage and loss of human lives dueto the torrential rains. In the thick of it allPresident Marcos could be seen appearing ontelevision, announcing a state of emergencyand mobilising government rescue and reliefefforts, promising flood-control projects to thepeople, and ordering the release of 300,000pesos to the social welfare administration tofinance relief operations. The First Lady andBong Bong Marcos went on the road,personally distributing relief goods. At thesame time, Manila’s Mayor Villegas wasdesperately asking the municipal boards forpower to borrow funds so he could implement aflood-control project to protect his own city.27

Scores of people were stricken with influenza,gastro-enteritis, pneumonia, diphtheria anddiarrhoea, with a 60 per cent increase inhospital admissions. Government agencies andthe departments of National Defence, Healthand Public Works and Communication weremobilised by the President. Marcos lookeddecisive and sympathetic as he provided rapid,albeit selective, operational assistance. ThePresident was reported as stating that hisgovernment would look into ways and means offinding immediate remedial measures toalleviate the appalling living conditions of manyrural and urban people, particularly thosedisplaced by the floods.28 Politically this

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rhetoric and grandstanding seemed convincing.It signified not only firm leadership, but alsothe fact that he was taking a strategic approachin dealing with the unfolding crisis. In addition,he involved the full range of key stakeholdersin the disaster mediation and relief process.The armed forces were mobilised at thePresident’s behest. In central Luzon, 10,000military men were alerted for relief and rescueoperations. Army trucks evacuated flood-boundresidents, navy divers scoured the flood watersfor the missing, government relief agencieswere placed on high alert and the Red Crossand civic organisations established reliefcentres all over Manila—but the overseasdonated and government funds did not alwaysreach the intended recipients. Instead, againstthis background of a proclaimed state ofcalamity, the conservative-run Marcosadministration was the prime beneficiary botheconomically and politically.

People candidly pointed out that the calamityhad favoured the conservative moneyedcandidates for the impending ConstitutionalConvention. As one commentator suggested,‘Indeed some candidates and their spouses,never known for their social conscience, weresuddenly flapping all over the stricken areaswith the solicitousness of vultures.’29 Chargesalso flew back and forth that certain vestedpolitical interests were hoarding relief goodsfor release at the approach of elections, forvery obvious reasons. For a month, the direstate of Luzon and the Philippine economy, thedominant theme of the impending election inthe aftermath of Typhoon Meding, wasconstantly discussed by the media in regard tothe President’s decisive role in mounting reliefoperations to manage the risk of floods. Marcostook pains to ensure that his ‘political’intervention caused by Meding’s impacts lasteduntil the elections. But the Presidentsoperational actions and selective assistanceover urban flooding were not appreciated byhis weakened political opponents.

Figure 4. Category 4 super typhoon Yoling,14 November–22 November 1970, peaki n t e n s i t y , 2 5 0 k m / h ( 1 5 5 m p h )(Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale,SSHS).

Source. ‘Typhoon Patsy (Yoling),’ Wikipedia,o n l i n e :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Pacific_typhoon_season#Typhoon_Patsy_.28Yoling.29,accessed 14 August 2013.

A confident Marcos, consequently was not soconcerned or solicitous several months laterwhen Typhoon Yoling (Patsy) struck on a coldgrey November day in 1970 (see Figures 4 and5). As the weather worsened, Ferdinand andImelda Marcos took the Burmese General NeWin and Madame Ne Win to Baguio by trainbecause the approaching typhoon did notpermit them to fly. While Yoling was rampagingacross Manila, Marcos and the General playedgolf on the Mansion house course.30 It becameapparent that the President, First Lady andtheir guests were to remain ignorant and, attimes, seemingly unconcerned about the plightof the people of Manila and the outlyingprovinces, as the typhoon took a terrible toll in

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lives and property. In the aftermath of thedisaster, the government would be harshlycriticised for its callous attitude and failure toact rapidly and decisively, and one of the leastsuccessful emergency- rescue efforts evermounted in the Marcos years must be countedas a major political blunder.

Rather than oversee immediate management ofthe disaster himself, the President put theExecutive Secretary and Assistant ExecutiveSecretary in charge of the operation on thisoccasion. Only after his round of golf with NeWin had been completed, did Marcos belatedlyissue a proclamation declaring a state ofcalamity in Manila, Caloocan, Quezon City andPasay. This delay was to prove costly.Thousands of government employees and othercitizens were stranded in Quiapo and SantaCruz because the government had not declareda no-work day. Repeated appeals for armytrucks to ferry the stranded employees awayfrom the flood-affected areas went unheeded.The association of private contractors who hadoffered to help Defence Secretary Juan PonceEnrile coordinate the relief effort was leftfacing no decision. Meanwhile, Marcos wasfinally advised about the scale of the death anddestruction left by the extreme typhoon. Hearrived back in Manila on 20 November andcalled an emergency meeting of key officials atthe headquarters of the National DefenseCoordinating Council (NDCC) at CampAguinaldo at noon. After being briefed hesigned the proclamation, declaring a state ofcalamity and allocated 100,000 pesos forcalamity relief.31

Caption: Figure 5. Track of TyphoonYoling, showing proximity to Manila.

Source. ‘Typhoon Patsy (Yoling),’ Wikipedia,o n l i n e :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patsy_1970_track.png, accessed 14 August 2013.

He was not to make the same politicalmisjudgement again. On 12 July 1972, whenTyphoon Gloring struck, President Marcosimmediately declared a state of calamity in theentire Luzon region and recommended toCongress the urgent passage of a 250-millionpesos calamity fund measure. But hisrecommendations fell on deaf ears. However,both the deafening silence and indifference inCongress to the proposed 250-million pesocalamity fund lasted only five days, whenTyphoon Gloring re-entered the islands with avengeance. Over the next seven days PresidentMarcos personally directed the massive reliefand rehabilitation efforts that were undertakenby the national government. The swift decisionsmade by Marcos beginning on 19 July 1972included:

ordering the immediate release of 3million pesos representing the unspentbalance of the Presidential CalamityFund in the previous year’s budget andtaking ful l responsibil ity of thisapparently illegal act, as there was nobudget yet to sanction any release of

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public funds during the current fiscalyear;seeking help of foreign governments toprovide additional relief goods;conducting several aerial surveys of thedisaster areas;ordering the commandeering of allavailable food supplies and privatetransport facilities in certain locations asemergency measures to help governmentrelief agencies;warning greater Manila that if foodprices continued to increase, he wouldtake the same drastic measures as inLuzon;converting the Maharlika Hall ofMalacanang into an emergency hospitalfor ailing flood victims;temporarily transferring the seat ofgovernment to Pangasinan.32

Marcos had also ordered the suspension of thedistribution of relief in Pampanga and thediversion of these goods to Pangasinan floodsufferers. These relief operations had been nomore than a trickle, squeezed out of theprovince’s own meagre and fast-dwindlingsupplies, before Marcos abruptly shifted reliefoperations away from Pampanga. On Saturdaynight, 23 July 1972, the navy transport, RPSSurigao del Norte and its cargo of clothes,foodstuffs and medicines was the first to castanchor off Lingayen. The arrival of the firstrelief ship sparked squabbles over thedisposition of the cargo of rice amongst theprovince’s incumbent and aspiring politicalleaders. On Tuesday 2 August, two moretransport ships, British and American, dockedwith 110,000 pounds of relief goods, securingPangisanan’s relief supplies. By then thePresident had flown in with a team of nationalofficials; a tent was set up near the Lingayenairstrip and with it came more promises offunds for Pangasinan.33 The politically gratefulloyal supporters of Pangasinan began amiraculously fast recovery from their miseryunder the watchful eye of their President who

made sure they received relief funds and foodaid that neighbouring Pampanga—further southon the road to Manila—was denied.

Furthermore, Marcos act ivated fourgovernment departments to bring help to thevictims of Typhoon Gloring: the departments ofNational Defence, Health, Social Welfare andPublic Works. Threats of an El Tor epidemic inPangasinan confronted Marcos,34 who, on 24July 1972, immediately took steps to avert thespread of the disease. He ordered stationhospitals to be established in varioustowns—just one of a series of measuresadopted to prevent the spread of El Tor, gastro-enteritis and bronchial diseases that usuallyfollow in the wake of floods and typhoons.35 TheHealth Department carried out massinoculation against El Tor, other strains ofcholera and typhoid in central Luzon. At thesame time Marcos ordered a physical inventoryof rice and other food stored in privatewarehouses. He directed the seizure of rice andfood stocks in private warehouses if the ownersrefused to sell to flood victims at prices fixed bythe Price Control Council.

In addition, the President quickly moved to tapforeign loans for the repair of major publicworks projects. He directed the FinanceSecretary to prepare an estimate of thenecessary matching funds for a $300 millionloan from a consortium of world bankers. ThePresident stated in an interview that thecounterpart fund could be as much as 1.8billion pesos under the usual requirement thatit should be at least 60 per cent of the proposedloan. The loan, when secured, would be repaidover a number of years. Marcos explained, ‘Thesituation is so desperate and explosive and thereason I say this is because we have not yetseen the end of the rainy and typhoon season,and there may yet be deficiencies this year infood, medicines and services.’36

Four years later, on 20 May 1976, four daysafter Typhoon Didang had struck, Marcos

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proclaimed a state of calamity in Metro Manila,Quezon Province and the Bikol region, in orderto ensure rapid selective distribution of reliefgoods and assistance and maintain stableprices of prime commodities. The Presidentmade the announcement at an emergencymeeting of top government officials andmilitary officers. He reassured the Filipinopeople that everything in their power wasbeing done to assist them. He advised floodvictims to stay indoors unless performingessential functions or relief work. The FirstLady, as Metro Manila Governor, said therewas enough food in the greater metropolitanarea and that government agencies were doingtheir best to prevent hoarding.37 She also askedManila mayors and her action staff oninfrastructure and flood control to submit arapid assessment of the extent of the floodingand damage, so immediate recovery stepscould be formulated and taken. Orders weregiven to remove all illegal constructions, suchas fish ponds, along riverbanks and esteros andprosecute those responsible for waterobstruction and drainage problems. As in thecase of Typhoon Gloring, the President andF i r s t L a d y l o o k e d d e c i s i v e a n dsympathetic—both on the spot and ontelevision. 3 8

The Philippines experienced severe storms andflooding throughout the 1970s that led tohundreds of millions of dollars worth of damagein Manila and the neighbouring islands to thesouth. In 1978, President Marcos took a coldhard look at the national recovery effort, orlack of it. The promulgation of PresidentialDecree (PD) No. 1566 that year created theNational Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC)which provided for ‘Strengthening thePhilippine Disaster Control Capability andEstablishing the National Program onCommunity Disaster Preparedness.’39 TheNDCC, under Marcos’ rule, automaticallybecame the highest policy-making, decision-making and coordinating body for disastermanagement in the Philippines.

Typhoons June (August 1984) and Ike(September 1984), which lashed a wide area ofthe central and southern Philippines, unleashedthe worst calamities to hit the archipelago infourteen years. In a delivered broadcast onTuesday 5 September 1984, President Marcosasked his nation, to forget its differences andconcentrate fully on rescue efforts. He said,Typhoon Ike was ‘one of the most severe thatthe nation has experienced in decades…thetotal toll at this time is hundreds, I hope notthousands dead.’40 The First Lady flew tostricken areas in the Visayas and Mindanaoregions. The Presidential Palace announcedthat she surveyed the destruction and directeddistribution of relief goods. A week afterMarcos’ television speech, the eruption of theMayon Volcano, 250 miles southeast of Manila,which forced the evacuation of 20,000 people,added to the pressures on the Marcos regimeand Manila. Ash fallout and mud flows fromrain caused extensive damage to crops in thearea and the displacement of a rural populaceon a large scale.

The besieged government cal led forinternational assistance. Again, several milliondollars in foreign relief aid poured into thePhilippines to help the estimated 2.4 millionpeople affected by the typhoons and volcaniceruption. But the Marcos administrationrequested even more international assistancein order to cope with the scope and magnitudeof the crisis. Diplomatic sources in Manila,however, publicly stated that given theunstable economic environment in thePhilippines, there was a possibility that reliefaid would be diverted and not reach thevictims. Marcos officials denied this couldhappen and several countries immediatelyresponded to the desperate call for assistance.

Specific Government Responses: ImeldaMarcos

Many long-term root causes were to blame inpart for the calamitous circumstances

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surrounding the succession of disastrouscyclonic storms of the 1970s and early 1980s.However, the rapid population growth andurbanisation of Manila in the Marcos yearsoutstripped the paltry amounts that had beenearmarked in the annual budget to assist policymakers and technical specialists deal with floodcontrol in a rapidly expanding city. The moneyavailable covered only a limited amount ofdredging of the Pasig River and someimprovements to the drainage system andinfrastructure that linked the polluted river,flowing at a snail’s pace through the heart ofthe capital, to Manila Bay.

Imelda Marcos was constantly in the public eyethroughout these years making relief visits tostorm- and flood-affected areas and to theNDCC at Camp Aguinaldo. Flooded sites werechecked, as were emergency centres beingreadied for the relief and rehabilitation oftyphoon and flood victims. Relief goods wereconstantly solicited from the private sector.During Typhoon Norming, 15–16 August 1974,Mrs Marcos went personally to the NDCC tooversee operations in neighbouring affectedprovinces. She ordered the distribution ofseeds for planting be speeded up, particularlyin central Luzon. She also inquired into theimplementation of drainage and flood-controlmeasures. She asked staff at Camp Aguinaldoto send medical teams immediately to theflooded areas in greater Manila and centralLuzon.41 While the First Lady occasionallyreceived a chilly welcome from residentssuffering from hunger and disease, generallyflood victims in the worst-affected placeswelcomed her with open arms, as if she wastheir saviour. The repeated relief operationsand measures she personally mounted toresolve the flood crises in Manila, primarilycaused by typhoon-related rains and poordrainage, suggested there was a powerfulpolitical imposition of will and concern on herpart to pragmatically act, and as quickly aspossible, to resolve particular local crises.

In May 1976, when Typhoon Didang was fastapproaching, Imelda Marcos rallied the privatesector and citizenry to help alleviate thesuffering of those who would be badly affectedby the floods. She also expressed hope that theemergency would ‘give every citizen, rich orpoor, a sense of responsibility so that we maynot aggravate natural flood handicaps byunwitting action.’42 She then spent most of thatnight and the following morning monitoringreports from the NDCC and emergency reliefoperations mobilised by barangay units in theMetro Manila area.43

In the years following Didang, when typhoonsraked Manila, Mrs Marcos would personallydirect the relief work in afflicted areas. For thethousands annually rendered homeless bywaist-level contaminated flood waters, thefigure of the First Lady organising medicine,food and other relief goods for distribution inMetro Manila’s social welfare and evacuationcentres became a common sight. Hence, whenTyphoon Yaning hit central Luzon on 9 October1978, Imelda Marcos mobilised all barangay-based disaster brigades to assist. She asked thebarangay captains to coordinate all theiractivities with their respective mayors. MetroManila officials and other action officers werein constant touch with various barangaycoordinators and the mayors from the MetroManila Coordinating Operations Center, toensure that the Governor’s orders were carriedout fully.44

This vertical integration of the Marcosadministration of the relief process anddistribution of relief goods was built on politicsand dyadic ties, namely party loyalty and grass-roots communal affiliation and responsibility.Such personal loyalties in the context ofdisaster relief efforts were translated into thepolitical process in the Marcos years throughwhat Carl Lande called ‘vertical chains ofdyadic patron-client relationships,’ extendingfrom the provincial elite and administratorsdown to lesser figures in the towns and

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barangays, the smallest administrative unit,and thence to the citizens.45 It was thisindispensible culturally configured informalsystem of relationships based on mutual-assistance and responsibility that constitutedthe real basis of political strength of the reliefwork and partisan politics during the Marcosyears.46

However, all was not as it seemed on thesurface. Marcos stressed that Malacanang andthe Department of Social Services were takingthe lead role in the distribution of relief goodsuntil conditions returned to normal. Butsuspicions about political misuse of the disasteraid arose over reports that Australian foodparcels had been relabelled as a ‘gift from thePresident and First Lady,’ when handed out tostorm and volcano victims. The Minister ofSocial Services, Sylvia Montes, quicklycountered the accusation stating that there hadbeen a misunderstanding because of the factthat the Philippine government had been usingsurplus Australian boxes to distribute its ownfood in a separate project and had relabelledthem. The Minister of Social Services deniedany political misappropriation of the disasteraid and said, ‘We can hold our heads high thatthere is no pillage.’47 She also denied reportsthat starvation was spreading among thevictims in some evacuation camps.

When their ‘political credit’ waned, if theirmanipulation of relief funds failed to producethe desired political result, Ferdinand andImelda Marcos were apt to invoke the languageof miracles and the wrath of God, as a powerfulcultural-symbolic idiom for the retention ofpower and to excuse the state’s abrogation ofsocial responsibility. In this way, the Presidentand First Lady could shift the focus of attentionaway from the charges of the political misuse ofrelief funds and the accusations of unbridleddevelopment by calling upon the powerful ideaof deus maquina (divine intervention), whichthey translated into a culturally familiarreligious message with a political twist. Instead

of implementing proper mitigation policies toreduce the risk of typhoon and flood disasters,Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos cunninglyfocussed on nature itself, in the guise of thewrath of God. They took advantage of certainreligious beliefs about sin and punishment, and,the godhead, and anthropomorphised nature’sfury in terms of divine intervention. ThePresident and his First Lady did not find itdifficult or hypocritical to think and talk abouttyphoon- and flood-related mass death anddestruction in terms of the religious rhetoric ofdivine punishment and miracles in thePhilippine context. Indeed, by the 1980s,newspaper findings suggest that Ferdinand andImelda Marcos attempted to impose the notionof the wrath of God on storm-ravaged peopleand flood victims in order to justify the failureof relief efforts and circumvent the newpressures put on their politically beleagueredgovernment by repeated typhoon strikes.

As well as invoking the wrath of God, MrsMarcos turned the oft-times perilous plight ofthe squatters and esteros-dwellers to her ownpolitical advantage. In the aftermath of thedisastrous impact of Typhoon Didang, sheappeared on television and observed that thesquatters—human and industrial—on theesteros were the primary cause of the floodsand she cal led for a f irm hand by thegovernment when dealing with them. ‘Illegallybuilt structures block the natural passage waysof the rains to the Pasig River and Manila Bay,’she said.48 She also stated that the ‘Governmentmust learn from its mistakes and shortsightedness in undertaking major constructionwithout constant regard for drainagefacilities.’49 But, because of the ongoingenvironmental destruction based on buildingoffice sky scrapers and opulent housing estates,and the unrelenting pace of rural-urbanmigration, in reality the only way to make thecapital flood-free was to build more canals,reservoirs and water catchment areas.

It is against this background of an emerging

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housing and environmental crisis and frequenttyphoon disasters that I now turn my attentionto Imelda Marcos’ grand vision, to showcaseManila to the world. The rise of commercial jettravel and the rise of Imelda’s Manila in an ageof trans-national capital and investment wenthand-in-hand. The First Lady wanted to makethe capital a recognised destination for boththe jet-age traveller and the globe-trottingbusiness executive. She understood thatalthough the Philippines appeared to offer alarge and growing consumer market with arange of possibilities for internationaldevelopment schemes, macro-investments andglobal capital manoeuvring, its population wasnot affluent, and much of it was still rural. Inlate 1975, the First Lady was declaredGovernor of the new administration system ofManila.50 The stage-managed development ofManila from this time onward presented ImeldaMarcos and her municipal administration witha unique opportunity to construct a majorseries of iconic buildings and landscapesettings, as both an aesthetic lure of capitaland market networks and a visible, albeiticonic, sign of ‘progress’ under new societyrule, signalling a city moving towards thefuture. But the First Lady’s aspirational visionto make Metro Manila one of the great cities ofthe world, in fact, gave birth to a programme ofurban renewal, whose fundamental social andeconomic interests did not correspond with thegreater good.51

She considered, with the urban planners, thatthe top priority of the newly establishedMetropolitan Manila Commission was themodernisation of Manila. This goal was to beaccomplished through the city’s managementsystem and integrated developmentprogrammes. Endorsed to head the city-widecommission, Imelda Marcos with her staff ofplanners conceived and implemented threeprogrammes ‘as a matter of survival,’ namely:selective flood control for the protection ofparts of the city from the ‘decay of death’;public cleanliness and beautification. But there

was a flipside to the modern skyscrapers nowbeginning to define the development of Manilaas a great modern urban centre: the grittytransport system, the fetid streets andlaneways of the down- and- out districts,teeming poverty, and the ubiquitous esteros.And, Imelda Marcos’ team had no real answersto transform the impoverished essence ofManila that now sat alongside the emergentPotemkin-like gloss and glamour of the city. Inthe meantime, typhoons and floods continuedto play havoc with an under-resourcedmaintenance and flood-prevention program inlarge parts of the diverse and multi-facetedcapital.

Conclusion

Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos did not only usethe productive character of ‘power’ to restrictsocial and individual possibilities. Theyproduced new strategies and techniques ofsocial control, through the development of theirvice-like regulation and management ofdisaster relief and, correspondingly, new socialand political capacities in the individualsthreatened by the typhoons and floods.52

Kenneth Hewitt argues in interpreting the roleof hazards in third-world societies that if themain purpose of government and scholars is tobring aid to the needy after calamity has struckthen it is clear that these disaster-mitigationresponses were not working properly, and theywere making matters worse in the Philippinesof the 1970s and mid-1980s. These failingswere generated by preoccupations of theMarcos government that were political-economic, agency centred and selectively,communal-centric. There was no need toquestion whether this was a deliberate moral ortechnical choice; rather it was a simple butnecessary side effect of partisan political andinstitutional arrangements. It is the meaningand implication of these arrangements as theybear upon the interpretation of risk andresponsibility for damages and disasterrelief—but also, more importantly, in relation to

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‘who eats and who does not’—with whichHewitt is concerned.53 Clearly, the Marcosadministration derived a dual benefit from thedestruction and deprivation wrought by thetyphoons and floods: the value of the resourcesthey controlled became inflated in a politicaland material sense, and they also controlled theforce necessary to either expand and protect,or deny, the support of redistributableresources and aid.54

It is difficult to imagine what the Philippineswould have been like today if its particularpost-1960s environmental history underMarcos had been different—one that had notresulted in the creation of an asset stripped,disaster-prone, debris-strewn landscape inmany parts of the country. Ferdinand andImelda Marcos believed that creating a saferenvironment in the face of typhoons and floodswas basically a political rather than an ethicalconcern and one directed to those in power.The deadly risks entailed in their self-seekingmodel of disaster relief with its short-termpragmatic political goals made explicitly clearone of the most frightening tradeoffs inPhilippine history. Loyal local governments andsupporters would readily receive financial andm a t e r i a l s u p p o r t i n o r d e r t o s a v einfrastructure, agricultural crops and as manylives as possible, but individuals, communitiesand areas opposed to the Marcos regime wouldbe sacrificed.

The Marcos regime did not suffer muchpolitically from the adverse effects of typhoonsand their opposition did not gain much. Thegovernment had political ingenuity andsubstantial resources for relief and rescueoperations at their disposal. Filipinos who werepositive about the Marcos government beforethe typhoons of the early 1970s remainedpositive afterwards. Supporters and recipientsof relief aid had a consistently high opinion ofFerdinand and Imelda Marcos. They would notinflict their hostility and life-threateningconcerns upon the couple when natural

disaster struck. But, in fact, the Marcosregime’s polit ical culture, which wasincreasingly violent and moving towards yetanother more-devastating war of counter-insurgency on the flimsiest of cold-warpretexts, was rapidly destroying theenvironment of which Filipinos had beencustodians for hundreds of years. The economicand environmental politics of the governmentreduced increasing numbers of people to astate of impoverishment and chronic anxiety. Atthe same time, a few politically well-connectedfamilies and individuals became richer andricher. They and the government violated theirsocial and ethical obligations towards thevictims of typhoons and floods and repeatedlycreated wealth out of other people’smisfortune.

Hence, at the height of the political ‘watergames’ damning presidential rhetoric wasdirected at the anonymous population ofoutcast Manila—the alleged dangerous slum-dwelling rural migrants—who had swelled theranks of the city. As late as 1985, as floods andheavy storms lashed the Philippines, Marcoswould continue to blame the migrant poor forthe floods that tarnished Manila’s internationalimage, claiming Filipinos who clogged up thecanals and sewers with their garbage werecommitting an ‘unpatriotic and selfish act.’55

But, such floods and typhoon disasters had realpolitical utility and provided a silver lining forthe Marcos regime; one need only to look overthe decade spanning the mid-1970s tomid-1980s, at the enormous extent of directinvolvement of the First Lady in controlling theregulation and distribution of relief aid in theaftermath of the storms and floods, followingTyphoon Gloring. Indeed, huge sums of moneythat had led to little or no success with respectto effective flood control had changed handswithout direct accountability or proper riskmanagement measures in place.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these so-called natural disasters, which required

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mobilisation of nation-wide relief efforts,emerged out of a particular institutional andcultural setting in the Philippine context.Ferdinand Marcos’ economic reforms hadbrought about dramatic socio-economic andecological changes that increased the risks ofman-made rather than natural disasters. Butthe President and First Lady steadfastlyrefused to acknowledge the link between cronycapital ism, unsustainable economicdevelopment and natural disasters in anincreasingly unstable archipelago. Theydeliberately remained in a state of denial,except to encourage big business, overseasgovernments and aid agencies to providemassive injections of capital and materialsupport for relief efforts, rather thanencouraging them to support appropriatedisaster-mitigation strategies.

During the Marcos years in the 1970s and early1980s, the loss of thousands of lives, as well asthe extensive damage caused by typhoons waspartially a consequence of settlement patternslocated in high-risk areas; namely, the sub-standard low-lying locale and condition ofsettlement patterns in many of these areas; thesub-standard condition of many homes andpublic buildings, and the poor design of roads,bridges, under-passes and drainage canals.56

Hence, the storms and floods affected theentire urban community in Manila, but nonemore so than the poor—in particular, thesquatters and shanty-town dwellers of Tondo.Ironically, the growing number of urban poor inManila was largely attributable to theuncontrolled sky’s-the-limit policies of rapideconomic growth under the martial law-leadMarcos regime from the late 1960s to 1986.

Crony Capitalism and the loss of livelihoodsand natural resources were the key causes forunderstanding the basis of the increasing socialand environmental degradation in the city, notthe alleged dangerous lifestyle of the squattersand aspiring migrants from the provinces.Imelda Marcos was to rapidly instigate

sanitation and beautification projects withconsiderable fanfare, but she certainly was notprepared to condone the social tightening andpolitical reform and regulation of the marketeconomy, that was required to improve the lotof Manila’s squatters and migrants living alongthe esteros and in places like Tondo.

In the political environment of the Marcosyears, the government had sometimes blockedaid for typhoon and flood victims. In the 1970sand early 1980s, there is evidence of theabrogation of international humanitarian reliefnorms and international legal frameworks fordisaster relief under the Marcos regime in thePhilippines. During those years, wilful acts ofmisappropriation and mismanagement of relieffunds, and theft and the improper sale of reliefsupplies in the name of politics occurred on aregular basis in the Philippines. Consequently,adequate food, shelter and medical care forthousands of people on the other side of thepolitical divide in the Marcos years, who wereadversely affected by typhoons and floods, wasnever provided.

Recommended citation: James F. Warren, "ATale of Two Decades: Typhoons and Floods,Manila and the Provinces, and the MarcosYears," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue43, No. 3, October 28, 2013.

Bio/Writings

James Warren is Professor of Southeast AsianModern History at Murdoch University,Western Australia. He gained his PhD inSoutheast Asian History from the AustralianNational University, and is an internationallyrenowned scholar of Southeast Asian studies.Professor Warren, who speaks or reads,Spanish, Dutch, Malay-Indonesian, Samal BajauLaut and Japanese, is a member of theAustralian Academy of Humanities. In 2003, hereceived the Centenary Medal of Australia for‘Service to Australian Society and theHumanities in the Study of Ethnohistory,’ andin 2013, he was awarded the Grant Goodman

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Prize in Historical Studies from the PhilippineStudies Group, Association for Asian Studies.

He has published numerous articles in journalsand chapters in edited volumes. Hismonographs include:

Pirates, Prostitutes and Pullers: Explorations inthe Ethno- and Social History of Southeast Asia(http://amzn.com/B008YOJC9O/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)(Crawley: University of WesternAustralia Press, 2008).

Ah Ku and Karayuki-san: Prostitution inS i n g a p o r e . ( 1 8 7 0 - 1 9 4 0 )(http://amzn.com/9971692678/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (Singapore: Oxford University Press,1993); ( new paperback edition with a newintroduction (Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress, 2003), theatre adaptation-‘Broken Birds:an Epic Longing’, 1995)

The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics ofExternal Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in theTransformation of a Southeast Asian MaritimeS t a t e(http://amzn.com/9971693860/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), (Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress, 1981; reprint Quezon City: New DayPress, 1986); new paperback edition with anew introduction (Singapore: SingaporeUniversity Press, 2007).

Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History ofS i n g a p o r e , 1 8 8 0 - 1 9 4 0(http://amzn.com/997169266X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (Singapore: Oxford University Press,1986); new paperback edition with a newintroduction ( Singapore: Singapore UniversityPress, 2003) Theater adaptation-‘MyGrandfather in the Cellar’, 1989).

Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, MaritimeRaiding and the Birth of Ethnicity (Singapore:Singapore University Press, 2002),- theatreadaptation-‘Tawag Sa Bantayan Punta’, 2011).

Iranun and Balangingi :Globalization, Maritime

Ra id ing and the B i r th o f E thn i c i t y(http://amzn.com/9971692422/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)(Quezon City: New Day Publishers,2002), nominated as a finalist for the NationalBook Awards the Philippines, Social Sciencecategory.

The Global Economy and the Sulu ZoneConnections, Commodities and Culture(http://www.eacrh.net/ojs/index.php/crossroads/article/view/12/Vol3_Warren_html) (QuezonCity: New Day Publishers, 2000). [Not availableat amazon.com. Link leads to article.]

The Sulu Zone, The World Capitalist Economya n d t h e H i s t o r i c a l I m a g i n a t i o n(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&u r l = h t t p % 3 A % 2 F % 2 F k y o t o -seas.org%2Fpdf%2F35%2F2%2F350201.pdf&ei = z a J t U p G _ H _ G u 4 A P -ioDoBw&usg=AFQjCNFlANX6GW62iUDrPEHvfvWXFLLZlA&sig2=CqEYUTAmPNhoMRSocfqCPQ&bvm=bv.55123115,d.dmg&cad=rja),(Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1998). [Notavailable at amazon.com. Link leads to adocument download.]

At the Edge of Southeast Asian History: Essaysb y J a m e s F r a n c i s W a r r e n(http://amzn.com/9711002639/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (Quezon City: New Day Press, 1987).

A Guide to the George L. Peet Collection onM a l a y s i a a n d S i n g a p o r e(http://amzn.com/0869050931/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), (Murdoch, WA: Murdoch UniversityLibrary, 1986).

The North Borneo Chartered Company'sAdministration of the Bajau, 1878–1909(http://www.lib.muohio.edu/multifacet/record/mu3ugb1364440) (Southeast Asia SeriesMonograph no. 22. Athens: Ohio University,1971). [Not available on amazon.com. Linkleads to library entry.]

Notes

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1 See James K. Boyce, The Political Economy ofGrowth and Impoverishment in the MarcosYears (Loyola Heights: Ateneo de ManilaUniversity Press, 1993); Robin Broad with JohnCavanagh, Plundering Paradise The Strugglefor the Environment in the Philippines(Berkeley: University of Californian Press,1993).

2 David M. Kummer, Deforestation in thePostwar Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo deManila University Press, 1992); MaritesDanguilan Vitug, Power from the Forest: thePolitics of Logging (Manila: Center forInvestigative Journalism, 1993); MichaelWilliams, Deforesting the Earth: FromPrehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 2006); David Wurfel, FilipinoPolitics: Development and Decay (LoyalaHeights: Ateneo de Manila University Press,1988).

3 See Micheal H. Glantz, Currents of Change: ElNino’s Impact on Climate and Society(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996); Ross Couper-Johnston, El Niño: TheWeather Phenomenon that Changed the World(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000); RichardJ. Murnane and Kam–Biu Liu (eds), Hurricanesand Typhoons: Past, Present, and Future (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2004).

4 Habibul Haque Khondker, ‘Politics, disasterand refugees: the Bangladesh case,’ in CrossingBorders: Transmigration in Asia Pacific, ed.Ong Jin Hui, Chan Kwok Bun and Chew SoonBeng (New York: Prentice Hall, 1995), 173–84;173.

5 See, Wurfel, Filipino Politics, 114–53.

6 Wurfel, Filipino Politics, 114–53; AreaHandbook for the Philippines (Washington:Foreign Area Studies (FAS) AmericanUniversity, 1976), 210–11.

7 Another term for clientalism is patron-clientrelationships. Cheng-Tian Kuo, Global

Competitiveness and Industrial Growth inTaiwan and the Philippines (Pittsburg andLondon: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995),79.

8 Stephan Haggard, ‘The political economy ofthe Philippine debt crisis,’ in Economic Crisisand Policy Choice: The Politics of Adjustment inthe Third World , ed. Joan. M. Nelson(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990);cited in Kuo, Global Competitiveness andIndustr ia l Growth in Taiwan and thePhilippines , 79.

9 Kuo, Global Competitiveness and IndustrialGrowth in Taiwan and the Philippines, 79.

10 David G. Timbermann, A Changeless Land:Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics(Singapore: Institute of Southeast AsianStudies), 1991, 91–92.

11 Amelia P. Varela, ‘Different faces of Filipinoadmin i s t ra t i ve cu l tu re , ’ i n Pub l i cAdministration by the Year 2000: Looking Backinto the Future, ed. Proserpine DomingoTapales, Nestor N. Pilar and Leonora D.Romblon (Quezon City: College of PublicAdministration, University if the Philippines,1995), 161–77; 174. See also Jon S. T. Quah,Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries: AnImpossible Dream? Bingley: Emerald Grouppublishing Ltd., 2011, 119.

12 David Chaikin and J. Shaman, ‘The Marcoskleptocracy, ’ Corruption and MoneyLaundering: A Symbiotic Relationship,Palgrave, Macmillan, 2009, 153–86.

13 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 66–67.See Daniel F. Doeppers and Peter Xenos, ‘Ademographic frame for Philippine History,’ inPopulation and History: the DemographicOrigin of the Modern Philippines, ed. Daniel F.Doeppers and Peter Xenos (Madison: Center forSoutheast Asian Studies, 1998), 1–16.

14 F. Landa Jocano, Slum as a Way of Life

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(Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1975).

15 Khondker, ‘Politics, disaster and refugees:the Bangladesh case,’ 173. Hurricane Katrinaand the fate of the presidency of George Bushis a classic example of how the politicalenvironment and a natural disaster interactw i t h o n e a n o t h e r w i t h u n f o r e s e e nconsequences for all parties concerned.

16 Abby Tan, ‘Typhoons, volcanos add pressureto Marcos, ’ The Washington Post , 18September 1984.

17 ‘Typhoons kills 473 in Philippines,’ TheWashington Post, 5 September 1984.

18 Jean Pope ‘Let’s talk about the weather,’Sunday Times Magazine, 26 July 1964, 44.

1 9 See ‘A brief history of the PhilippineMeteorological Service, ’ Phi l ippineAtmospheric, Geophysical and AstronomicalServices and Administration (PAGASA), online,http://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/history.shtml,accessed 18 December 2012.

20 Charlotte Benson, The Economic Impact ofNatural Disasters in the Philippines (London:Overseas Development Institute, 1997),94–102.

21 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 120–21.

22 Val Abelgas, ‘Workers start clearing cloggeddrainage,’ Philippines Daily Express, 25 May1976. See, Abhas K Jha, Robin Bloch andJessica Lamond, Cities and Flooding: A Guideto Integrated Urban Flood Risk Managementfor the 21st Century (Washington D.C.: TheWorld Bank, 2011).

23 ‘Metro Manilans will have to get used tomore floods,’ Philippines Sunday Express, 23May 1976.

24 Greg Bankoff and Dorothea Hilhorst, ‘Thepolitics of risk in the Philippines: comparing

state and NGO perceptions of disastermanagement,’ in Disasters, vol. 33, no. 4(2009): 686–704.

25 Greg Bankoff,’ A history of poverty: thepolitics of natural disasters in the Philippines,1985–1995,’ The Pacific Review, vol. 12, no. 3(1999): 381–420; 405–11.

26 Anthony Oliver Smith, ‘Anthropologicalresearch on hazards and disasters,’ AnnualReview of Anthropology, vol. 25 (1996):303–28; 311–12.

27 E.F. Formento, Jr., ‘Calamity and typhoonMeding. Or what happens when the rains comein torrents,’ The Weekly Nation, 14 September1970.

28 ‘Lopez to flood areas today,’ The ManilaTimes, 8 September 1970; Jose V. Barrameda,Jr., ‘The 13 th of October, Black Tuesday,’Graphic, 4 November 1970.

29 Barrameda, ‘The 13th of October, BlackTuesday.’

30 Jose V. Barrameda, Jr., ‘Typhoon Yoling, acold grey November day,’ Graphic, 9 December1970.

31 H.D. Suyko, ‘When disaster struck,’ TheWeekly Nation, 30 November–7 December1970.

32 ‘The loneliness of a long distance reliefworker,’ The Manila Times, 25 July 1972.

33 ‘After week long ordeal Pangasinan rises,’ nodate, no source, Typhoon News Clipping File(TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA.

34 El Tor is the name given to a particular strainof the bacterium vibrio cholerae, the causativeagent of cholera.

35 ‘El Tor threatens flooded towns!’ The ManilaTimes, 24 July 1972.

APJ | JF 11 | 43 | 3

21

36 ‘Says RP must raise P1.8 B,’ no date, TheManila Times, Typhoon News Clipping File(TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA.

37 Vicente M. Tanedo and Cecilio T. Arillo,‘Marcos proclaims calamity,’ The TimesJournal, 21 May 1976.

38 ‘FL asks for aid to victims,’ The TimesJournal, 20 May 1976, Typhoon News ClippingFile (TNC), 1976–1978, PAGASA.

39 ‘Information on disaster risk reduction of themember countries,’ Asian Disaster ReductionC e n t e r ( A D R C ) , 2 0 0 8 , o n l i n e :http://www.adrc.asia/nationinformation.php?NationCode=608&Lang=en&Mode=country,accessed 18 December 2012.

40 ‘Typhoon kills 473 in the Philippines.’

41 ‘Death toll goes up to 19,’ Times Journal, 18August 1974; ‘Epidemic outbreak,’ The ManilaTimes, 25 July 1972, Typhoon News ClippingFile (TNC), 1970–1975, PAGASA.

42 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’

43 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’

44 M. Casayuran, ‘Storm rakes Central Luzon;exiting today,’ Bulletin Today, 10 October 1978,Typhoon News Clipping File (TNC), 1976–1978,PAGASA.

45 Carl Lande, Leaders, Factions and Parties:The Structure of Philippine Politics (New

Haven: Yale University Southeast AsiaMonograph Series Number 6, 1966).

46 Area Handbook for the Philippines, 213.

47 Abby Tan, ‘Typhoons, volcanos add pressureto Marcos.’

48 ‘FL asks for aid to victims’; ‘Mrs Marcossurveys damage, airs appeal,’ Philippine DailyExpress, 21 May 1976.49 ‘FL asks for aid to victims.’

50 Manuel A. Caoili, The Origins of MetropolitanManila: A Political and Social Analysis (QuezonCity: New Day Publishers, 1988), 157–59.

51 David Goldblatt, Social Theory and theEnvironment (London: Polity Press, 1996), 195.

52 George Caffentzis, ‘On the notion of a crisisof social reproduction: a theoretical review,’The Commoner, no. 5 (Autumn 2002): 1–22; 2.

53 Kenneth Hewitt, Interpretations of Calamity(Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 123–25.

54 Robert Dirks, ‘Social responses during severefood shortages and famine, ’ CurrentAnthropology, vol. 21, no. 1 (February 1980):21–44; 27.

55 ‘28 dead in floods and landslide as heavyrains lash Philippines,’ The Seattle Times, 28June 1985.

56 Benson, The Economic Impact of NaturalDisasters in the Philippines, 103–04.