Abstract

Household and Communities in a Post-Earthquake Situation:
Lesson on Survival and Self-Reliance
Raoul M. Cola
College of Public Administration
University of the Philippines

ABSTRACT

During the 16 July 1990 earthquake, households and communities immediately responded to its Impact to ensure their survival and the restoration of their former lifeways. The response mainly made use of available resources (material and non-material) and group (kinship, neighborhood or community based) effort. However, the response was conceived and implemented in a haphazard and trial-and-error manner.

One of the source of divisive competition and conflicts at that time was the absence of defined procedures for households in assistance procurement. Although initially they relied on their community leaders who secured assistance from various government and non-government sources, many households preempted their leaders and other households by directly soliciting assistance outside their communities. Government and non-government units based outside the community failed to respond immediately to the situation.

Communities evolved a distribution system of relief assistance based on their own concept of fairness. This distribution system had built-in accountability procedures so that short-cutting it invited suspicion of pilferage. But instead of working within this system, some government and non-government units directly delivered relief goods to the households. Doing so upset the functioning of the existing distribution system and resulted to a number of undesirable consequences.

In the absence of outside assistance, the survival and the normalization of the lives of the households and their community hinged not only on the household (such as houses) and community (such as roads) properties spared by the disaster but also on their natural resources. As a result of the breakdown of the distribution system of goods and services, the households became more dependent on the resources in their natural environment. The communities who had these resources and knew how to use these had greater chances of surviving the disaster even without any outside assistance.

It is apparent that any effective natural disaster mitigation program should be built around the community rather than on higher government units and on non-government units. The effort of these units should only supplement rather than supplant that of the community. Making the community the centerpiece of a disaster mitigation program is borne out of the realization that government and non-government units, particularly in the developing countries, have very limited capability to assist afected communities. Given the poverty prevailing in developing countries, outside assistance if given outside the context of the concept of self-help, readily nurtures dependency among affected communities by supplanting local capability.

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