El comercio informal y su enfoque socio cultural

In the aftermath of the 1991 disaster in Ormoc, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)-Region VIII recommended the reforestation of “a 50 meter strip along the banks of all live rivers within the watershed,” the conversion of “all areas upstream with elevation of 400 meter sea level” into tree plantations “following all contour lines of 400 meters as boundary,” and “expan[sion of the remaining forest of the watershed] area by reforestation to cover at least 40% on the upper portion of the watershed.”648 The Department of Agriculture (DA) went further by suggesting the total reforestation of Ormoc’s 4,500-hectare watershed.649 The problem was that there was a lack of political interest in reforestation. “Convincing the landowners is a problem,” said Dr. Gregorio Yrastorza Jr., Ormoc councillor and chair of the City Disaster Coordinating Council (CDCC), “What we’re trying to come up with is a solution that they will be happy with, realizing that it is good for the majority.”650 _{The national}

government in turn admitted its inability to enforce reforestation, with Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Fulgencio Factoran noting that the only viable approach is to

put pressure on them. And how do you put pressure on the rich? By getting the poor who are plenty to demonstrate. If there is another flood, the poor will be the first to die. This is the agrarian redux. You see it again and again and again.651

The year 1991 for Ormoc closed with the horrific images of mass death and destruction. The following year, 1992, was symbolic and transitional because relief and rehabilitation programs were slowly creating various new landscapes: NGOs and other relief organizations were overseeing the establishment of new communities in the wake of the relocation process; streets, bridges and other damaged and destroyed

648 _{DENR-Region VIII (1991), “Investigation report of the Ormoc City disaster,” 18.} 649 _{Cited in H. Severino, “Ormoc tragedy: Gov’t hands tied on reforestation,” 1& 12.} 650 _{Severino, “Ormoc revisited,” Ibid.}

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infrastructure were being cleared up; and, there was a sense of purpose of rebuilding broken lives. On 1 July 1992, Dodong Codilla assumed local power, signalling the end to an era of landowner political leadership and ushering in renewed hope for a new brand of governance, one headed by a man who had himself emerged triumphant from poverty. Rehabilitation would actually further deepen during this new administration, and how the lives of the most vulnerable communities in Ormoc would be transformed can only be understood within this framework of political change in 1992. Many believed that the flood spelled the end of the Larrazabal-Locsin’s political careers and the rise of the Codilla political clan as a viable alternative to feudal leadership.

Displacement and Relocation

From the early to mid-1990s, collaboration between the government and non-government organizations (NGOs) and church groups undertaking housing projects in Ormoc continued, with the latter given much leeway in their operations. Seven housing projects contributed to a ‘mild construction boom’ in 1992, establishing new villages for flood survivors.652 These villages were the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) with 701 beneficiaries, 280 in the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Core Shelter, 190 in PhilRads, and 108 in Holy Wings, all in Barangay Tambulilid; 171 in Barangay Alta Vista; 25 in Su-ong in Barangay Curva, and 236 in Barangay Bagong Buhay.653 The housing projects did not include those that had been funded by NGOs on their own, such as the resettlement villages of World Vision in barangays Linao and Ipil, the Benedictine Village project of the Benedictine sisters also in Ipil, the Red Cross Village in Bliss, Barangay Bagong Buhay, and the San Lorenzo Village comprised of 100 families654

652 _{“Mild housing boom noted in Ormoc,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10 November 1992, 7.} 653 _{Ormoc City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWD), “Master list of resettlement}

areas,” Urban Poor Affairs Office, as of 2013. This official tally, however, differs from that found in the logbook at the Urban Poor Planning and Development Office of the Ormoc City Government, which states: PhilRads-119 flash flood victim-beneficiaries; Holy Wings-108; Alta Vista-171; Su-ong-25; and, Bagong Buhay-258. While it was clear in the Urban Poor logbook that the list referred only to flash flood victim-beneficiaries, the “Master list of resettlement areas” did not specify the beneficiaries as flash flood victims.

654 _{E. Benedicto, “Ormoc after 3 years: ‘No other way to go but up,” Philippine Daily Inquirer,}

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resettled in Barangay San Pablo and subsidized by the Archdiocese of Palo. The variety of housing projects headed by these organizations created opportunities for survivors to ‘window-shop’ for relocation sites and choose where to live, as recounted by a survivor,

When I looked at all the offers I chose Tambulilid actually because I considered all the proposed areas. When I was still connected with the Benedictine sisters as a member of faculty I thought that maybe I won’t want to stay long here, that I won’t want to be a teacher anymore so we decided, my wife, that we will go where it wasn’t connected with an employer, like that. True enough, I resigned after eight years.655

These houses cost from 5,300 pesos per unit for houses put up by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI), to the 25,000 pesos per unit by the Archdiocese of Palo.656 The projects were projected in 1992 to accommodate only 2,658 families, “less than half of those rendered homeless by the flood.”657 The actual number of beneficiaries, however, based on the master list of the DSWD, was much lower at 1,801.658

Resettlement was offered primarily to evacuees residing at Tent City, who had once been informal settlers along the Anilao and Malbasag riverbanks. Radio announcements around Leyte province had been regularly broadcast for up to a year to inform survivors who had left Ormoc to go back and be listed for resettlement housing. The DSWD and various NGOs obviously defined the most vulnerable communities as those who had earlier resided along the two rivers, whose houses in the flood aftermath had been

hurot tanan.659 _{These were the families who were given much media}

attention, and as such received the bulk of humanitarian aid. However, much

655 _{Buboy, interview with author, 11 March 2013, in Ormoc City, original in mixed Filipino and}

English, on the question if one could choose where to relocate, transcribed and translated by author.

656 _{Ibid. However, RAFI, says Chief Operating Officer Dominica Chua, had already exited}

Ormoc in February 1992, and that the houses RAFI had financed could not be compared to low cost housing projects such as that funded by the Archdiocese of Palo.

657 _{E. Benedicto, “Ormoc after 3 years: ‘No other way to go but up,” Ibid.}

658 _{Ormoc City Social Development and Welfare Office (CSWD), “Master list of resettlement}

areas,” Ibid.

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less was reported about the proliferation of the ‘wise-out’ versus ‘washed-out’ families who saw in the disaster aftermath an opportunity to own homelots. Physical scars from the disaster became valuable social markers to signify who were genuine survivors from those who were not, and, by right, beneficiaries of all relief and rehabilitation programs, as one survivor noted:

It’s because you know every day it was increasing. You know people even though they weren’t washed out, [they were] wise out. [Kevin Caballero, a GK representative present during the interview: It’s because there were already benefits] In the beginning, it was do you have an uwat? What is your uwat? [Caballero: A mark]. Do you have a mark? [Caballero: Scar] Because that was what we knew if you were a survivor, that was it really. It was good that mine was on my foot, just my foot. That was it because in the beginning [there was] no house if you weren’t a survivor.660

As some cases in the following three chapters will show, cunning and savvy individuals, who should not have been recipients of aid, were still able to procure homelots through the use of personal networks and fraud:

Sometimes if you are just prudent and…you are really aggressive, you will really have a house. But if you just wait around, nothing [will happen] though there were free [housing]…even there, that was our situation [people wanting to be] first and who you know, it was like that. And even then there were lots who came in who were…yes really wise out, everyone, even implementers. I’m not talking in the RAFI but maybe some other co-implementers. Those that were free, you just have to pay for so you could get materials out [for housing].661 For many poor families, regardless of whether they were direct victims or not, the post-disaster situation was obviously an opportunity that could not be missed, especially in the procurement of a limited number of homelots.

660 _{Roberto ‘Buboy’ Igot and Kevin Caballero, simultaneous interviews with author, 11 March}

2013, original in mixed Filipino and English, transcribed and translated by author.

661 _{Roberto ‘Buboy’ Igot, GK representative and himself a survivor, interview with author, 4}

May 2013, at the Gawad Kalinga Provincial Office, Barangay Tambulilid, Ormoc City, original in mixed Filipino and English, transcribed and translated by author.

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Yet, it cannot be overemphasized that groups of survivors did fall through the cracks during the relief and rehabilitation stage and were not able to take advantage of the offered benefits for many reasons. For families whose houses were only partially damaged, though they had also lived in precarious locations along the two rivers, evacuation to the public schools in the short term and resettlement in the long term were not high priorities compared with those whose houses were totally washed away. Renters and boarders were also left out, as were single- and female-headed households without extensive social networks, as were the case of recent migrant families. Worker families in haciendas, by virtue of being tied to their landlords who were assumed to take care of their needs as had been the case historically, were often also sidelined in government relief and rehabilitation programs. It was only through the initiative of church and non-government organizations that the plight of these marginalized groups were recognized and addressed. The relief situations of more remote communities that had also been badly affected were worse, as a selective media did not provide adequate exposure to their disaster experiences and needs, thus affecting the immediacy and potency of external assistance.

Another dimension of disaster aftermath often not given attention is that survivors may be put through a bizarre cycle of victimization by well- meaning individuals and groups who, in the process of asking them to recount disaster stories, actually pander to a public fascinated by ‘disaster porn.’ In Ormoc after the 1991 flood event, while this had not yet been fully developed by media compared with such disasters as the 2013 typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) storm surge in Tacloban City, an indication could already be glimpsed, as one survivor mused:662

…It was good that I had an outlet, the community at that time [referring to a Catholic lay organization he was part of], even though I thought that…it was like I was being taken advantaged of because

662 _{Disaster porn or disaster pornography, often associated with the media in disaster}

aftermath, is the re-framing of a “public issue” as merely a “private trouble,” using the language of sociologist C. Wright Mills. Yet, for all the flaws of disaster porn, Recuber argues that it is still a critical political terrain where “publics are at least implicitly asked to struggle with the social significance of the suffering of others.” T. Recuber, “Disaster porn!” Contexts 2013, SAGE Journals (11 May 2013) (Online).

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every time there was a gathering it was like my sharing was to add spice because the speaker [for an event] would not be very good…So it was like I even felt sometimes that I was being abused…my wife said I shouldn’t share [my stories] anymore.663

In many cases, such a disaster opens space and opportunity for a government to enforce pre-existing land use laws and, particularly in the case of urban areas, slum clearance policies that had not been previously enforced.664 _{One of the most immediate consequences of rehabilitation and}

reconstruction that has received widespread interest among scholars and practitioners is the issue of resettlement, in particular involuntary resettlement.665 The World Bank defines involuntary resettlement as both “displacement triggered by environmental degradation, disasters, conflicts or development projects that cause people to lose land or other assets, as well as lose access to resources, and the process of assistance for these people to improve, or at the least restore, lost incomes and living standards.”666

In Ormoc after November 1991, the flash flood provided the local government with a firmer resolve in imposing the legal easement provision that prohibited the building of any structure within three meters from the bank of any river in urban areas. It wasn’t easy, as original settlers along the

663 _{Buboy, interview with author, original in Filipino and English, when asked whether he}

experienced symptoms of depression and how long it took him to come to terms with his experience.

664 _{See also for cases in Sri Lanka and India, J. Shaw and I. Ahmed, Design and Delivery of}

Post-Disaster Housing Resettlement Programs, Case Studies from Sri Lanka and India, Report 6. (Monash University and RMIT University (Undated) (Online).

665 _{See, for example A. Jha with J. Barenstein, P. Phelps, D. Pittet and S. Sena, “To relocate}

or not to relocate,” Safer Homes, Stronger Communities, A Handbook for Reconstructing after Natural Disasters (World Bank, 2010), Chapter 5; J. Shaw and I. Ahmed, Design and Delivery of Post-Disaster Housing Resettlement Programs, Case Studies from Sri Lanka and India; A. Oliver-Smith, “Successes and failures in post-disaster resettlement,” in Disasters, The Journal of Disaster Studies and Management Vol. 15 No. 1 (March 1991), 12-13; B.J. Batra and S. Chaudhry, International Human Rights Standards on Post-disaster Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Working document (Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network and People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning in collaboration with the UN Special Raaporteur on Adequate Housing, August 2005); E. Correa with F. Ramirez and H. Sanahuja, Populations at Risk of Disaster, A Resettlement Guide (World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, 2011); and, M. Cernea (ed), The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement, Questions and Challenges

(Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1999).

666 _{World Bank, “Social Development, Involuntary resettlement.” Last updated 28 May 2010}

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riverbanks did not always want to be resettled elsewhere.667 _{Some families}

indeed went back to their original areas of residence in the aftermath of the disaster. But for those who agreed to be resettled, they had to satisfy the criteria identified by the DSWD and NGOs and recommended by barangay officials.668 _{The NGOs then, in an effort to discourage dole out, organized}

food-and-house-for-work programs that required beneficiary families to take an active involvement in the construction of their own houses, as one recipient in a World Vision village explained:

Here, we were screened ma’am…as beneficiary that time when we arrived here we worked and were paid in noodles and rice. That was during the flood. We were beneficiaries from the flood who came from Malbasag as almost everyone who came here came from Malbasag because of World Vision so we came here to work on our houses which according to Ma’am Vivian [referring to Vivian Valdesanzo, the project director of World Vision in Ormoc] for every one house there should be two workers so the payment was three kilos of rice and five dried fishes and two [packs of] noodles, but we who had worked, we owned the house, this house, that was our recompense.669

The Ormoc City government pursued a second involuntary resettlement program when the Japanese government, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), provided a grants-in-aid project amounting to 1.2 billion pesos for flood control. The Philippine government raised in turn nearly 300 million pesos as counterpart funding. The resulting resettlement program entailed the identification of 4,701 dwelling units, mostly along the banks of the Anilao and Malbasag Rivers that were identified as damageable assets in 1994 and the estimation of a total compensation cost of 443.4 million pesos, divided into land acquisition and

667 _{See E. Benedicto, “Ormoc City revisited: Memories of killer flood start to fade,” Philippine}

Daily Inquirer, 5 November 1995, 19.

668 _{Beneficiary selection for resettlement in Sri Lanka after the 2001 tsunami was also a}

process highly prone to politics, as the eligibility criteria were very broad and open to discretion from local officials. J. Shaw and I. Ahmed, Design and Delivery of Post-Disaster Housing Resettlement Programs, Case Studies from Sri Lanka and India, 18-19.

669 _{Mila, interview with author, 23 June 2013, in World Vision Village in Barangay Ipil, Ormoc}

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house evacuation for those who were affected by the project.670 _{The city}

government also appropriated five million pesos in the 1997 annual budget for land development and 2.027 million pesos for water development in the resettlement area of Barangay JICA-Lao.671 Only 526 families were finally listed as beneficiaries resettled in JICA-Lao, mostly affected by the flood control project, but some of whom had also been identified as flood victims as well.672 _{According to the project supervisor, Shuji Kaku of CTI Engineering}

International, the consultant for the JICA grant,

Land had to be reclaimed in order to widen the rivers, so we had to ask the people living there to move elsewhere. The residents were told to move elsewhere. The residents were told that the project would make life safer for them, but they couldn’t understand why they had to leave the place they called home.673

From 1997 to 2001, four new bridges and three slit dams were constructed in Ormoc City to confine the flood discharge of a 50-year return