ADAPTATION BEHAVIOR OF VULNERABLE

COASTAL HOUSEHOLDS IN THE RURAL

PHILIPPINES WHEN TYPHOON
MILENYO STRIKES

Jonna P. Estudillo
Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development and
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Tokyo, Japan

The views expressed in this paper/presentation are the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or
policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADB does
not guarantee the source, originality, accuracy, completeness or reliability of any statement, information, data, finding,
interpretation, advice, opinion, or view presented, nor does it make any representation concerning the same.

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 Background
In developed as well as developing countries, people
face a wide variety of risks to their livelihood.
 Health related risks (accidents, sickness, or sudden
death) (Dercon and Krishnan, 2000)
 Price and yield risks, contractual risks, and policy
or political risks (Kang and Sawada, 2008)
 Natural disasters (Sawada, 2007; Sawada and Shimizutani, 2008)

→Natural disasters are typically rare or unforeseen

events. Shocks generated by a natural disaster have
rarely been investigated due to data constraints at
the household level.

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 Overview of natural disasters

Source: Disaster statistics, Occurrence: trends-century <http://www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/occurrence-

trends-century.htm>, EM-DAT : The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database. <http://www.em-dat.net>
UCL - Brussels, Belgium

Hydro-meteorological=floods, storms, droughts, landslides; Geological=earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis;

Biological=epidemics and insect infestations 3
 Philippines
The weather bureau in the Philippines (PAGASA)
reports that there are about 20 typhoons that enter
the Philippine Area of Responsibility every year
from 1948 to 2004.
Hydro-meteorological events occur frequently in
the Philippines.
→Necessary to identify effective risk reduction
strategies and coping mechanisms to alleviate the
negative impacts of hydro-meteorological events
I present here a case study of a study village in the
Philippines that was devastated by Milenyo
(international code “Xangsane”).
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 East Laguna Village
(Hayami and Kikuchi, 1982, 2000)
◦ Hayami (1978); Hayami, et
al. (1978); Hayami and
Kikuchi (1978a, b, c);
Hayami, Moya and Bambo
(1978); Hayami and Kikuchi
(1979); Hayami and Kikuchi
(1980a, b, c), Hayami and
Kikuchi (1981), Hayami and
Kikuchi (1982), Hayami and
Kikuchi (1983a, b, ),
Hayami and Kikuchi (1985),
80km
from IRRI surveys, Hayami and
MNL
Kikuchi (2000)
◦  Fuwa et al. (2006), and Kajisa
(2007), Sawada et al. (2007)

→East Laguna Village was a typical rice-growing village along the coast of
Laguna de Bay in 1974 when Prof. Hayami started his survey.
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Lessons from East Laguna
Village
1. Households with more diversified income sources were
much less affected by Milenyo. Income diversification in
favor of nonfarm sources had offered the best insurance
mechanism in the face of income uncertainty in agriculture.
→Policy response: Stimulate the development of the rural
nonfarm sector by investing in infrastructure, most
importantly electricity and paved road, and upgrade the
quality of education.
2. Damages caused by Milenyo were largely
idiosyncratic―farmers who used small-scale individual
water pumps and shorter-growth duration rice varieties
were not affected by crop damages.
→Policy response: Strengthen agricultural research centers
and extension services to update the farmers on the
availability of new agricultural technology.
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 Lessons from East Laguna Village (Continued)

3. Milenyo highlighted the importance of ex-post risk

coping mechanisms such emergency informal transfers
from close kins and aid from the local government in
the form of food basket and house repair materials.
→Policy response: For small disasters creating
idiosyncratic shocks, relief operations by sub-national,
local and village government and private individuals
could be the most effective. In contrast, in the case of
mega disasters creating large covariant shocks (e.g.,
Sichuan earthquake in China and Kobe earthquake in
Japan), relief operations done by national government
through the military and international organizations
such as Red Cross and friendly allied countries could
be the most appropriate.

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 Outline of this talk
Vulnerability and adaptation behavior
Damages wrought by Milenyo
Coping mechanisms during Milenyo
and regular typhoons
Public sector response to Milenyo
Policy issues

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 Vulnerability and adaptation behavior
 Water logging on rice fields is a source of income
vulnerability because fields have the same elevation
as Laguna de Bay → use of portable water pumps
and short growth duration rices
 Flooding in the residential areas → houses are
constructed in slightly elevated grounds.
 Income vulnerability in agriculture → income
diversification in favor of nonfarm sources
Year Total1 Farm origin Nonfarm origin
1974/76 (00PHP) 58(100)2 50(87) 8(13)
1980/83 (00PHP) 53(100) 33(62) 20(38)
1995/96 (00PHP) 56(100) 20(36) 36(64)
2006/07 (00PHP) 76(100) 24(32) 52(68)
*Deflated by CPI (100=1995)

Source: Estudillo et al (2010) 9

 Milenyo and its damages
Milenyo caused:
◦ The Bicol region suffered most heavily
with damages of PHP3.5B (US$70M).
◦ CALABARZON region lost PHP2.1B
(US$42M).
◦ Shook and battered the lives of
4,022,603 individuals belonging to
825,493 families in 4,450 villages
◦ 496,325 homes were totally or partially
destroyed.
◦ 127 deaths, 323 injured, and 45 missing.
 Supports from Government and NGOs
was only PHP95.46M (US$1.9M)

→The households shouldered the

largest portion of the damages.
Source: Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia.

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 Damages to the households
Kind of damage Farmer Landless Nonagricultural
Number % Number % Number %
None (0) 10 24 63 42 108 51
Lost house (1) 0 0 0 0 0 0
House seriously damage (2) 5 12 39 26 62 30
Lost utensils (3) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Lost productive assets (4) 1 2 1 1 5 2
Lost job (5) 0 0 1 1 5 2
Income declined (6) 9 22 16 11 6 3
Lost members (7) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Members got injured or sicked (8) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Crop damage (9) 1 2 5 3 13 6
Others (10) 0 0 0 0 4 2
Combination of (2) and (4) 0 0 0 0 1 0
Combination of (2) and (5) 1 2 0 0 0 0
Combination of (2) and (6) 2 5 11 7 2 1
Combination of (2) and (9) 1 2 0 0 2 1
Combination of (4) and (6) 0 0 2 1 0 0
Combination of (6) and (9) 7 17 9 6 1 0
Combination of (2), (6) and (9) 4 10 1 1 0 0
Combination of (1), (6) and (9) 0 0 0 0 1 0
Combination of (6) and (10) 0 0 1 1 0 0
Total 41 100 149 100 210 100

Source: Sawada et al (2009, p.118).

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 Coping mechanisms during Milenyo
Coping mechanism Farmer Landless Nonagricultural
(percent) (percent) (percent)
1.Reduce food consumption 27 76 47
1.1 Rice 0 15 8
1.2 Protein 5 27 13
1.3 Food taken outside 22 34 26
2. Switch consumption to own produce 12 34 22
3. Reduce child schooling 2 1 4
4. Reduce medical expenses 0 3 3
5. Sale of valuable items 0 4 6
6. Emergency borrowing 33 50 30
6.1 Bank 5 3 2
6.2 Relatives 12 13 10
6.3 Friends 3 7 3
6.4 Neighbors 0 6 0
6.5 Moneylender 10 6 5
6.6 Pawnshop 0 0 0
6.7 Sari-sari store 3 15 10
7. Emigration 0 0 0
8. Received remittances 25 16 21
9. Aid from local government and NGO 46 65 58
10. Nonfarm employment 85 60 94

Source: Sawada et al (2009, p.120).

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 Coping with smaller typhoons
Self-insurance mechanisms such as “own
savings and income” is the most common.
Help from relatives
Borrowing and remittances
→With Milenyo reduction in consumption
and help from the government were
reported because of the severity of
damages.

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 Public sector response to Milenyo
Relief operations → village hall as a
temporary shelter, grocery bags, galvanized
iron sheets, and cash gift → effective
targeting of the beneficiaries because the
village officials were actively involved thereby
decreasing imperfect information and
uncertainty between the donor and recipient.
Strict food price and supply monitoring
National government declared Laguna as a
disaster area
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 Policy issues
Self-insurance has been proven to be an effective
mechanism against various forms and intensity of
idiosyncratic shocks.
Ex post risk management on the part of the public sector
could be effective if it is channeled to lower governance
unit.
For frequently occurring natural disaster ex-ante risk
management schemes are indispensible.
◦ Income diversification offers the best hope in agricultural
villages
◦ Disaster preparedness strategies such as infrastructure and
building safety, drainage system to reduce flooding, and early
warning system

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End of slide show

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