Statement on HR Day 2025

A Turning Point: Building Resilience Against the Hydro-Governance Catastrophe

Friends, colleagues, and advocates for a resilient future, may our celebration of the 2025 International Human Rights Day inspire shifts in our understanding of self-determinations amidst the devastation brought about by climate catastrophies.

Last week, we did the second leg of our community post-disaster humanitarian support services in Liloan, Cebu. There, I met a young man who feared failing his exams because the flood had destroyed his laptop. I also met an elderly couple, in their 70s, whose home is now only a few meters of awning donated by kind neighbors. I am here not just to reflect on these heartbreaks, but to shine the floodlight into issues that call us to commit to a path of genuine, lasting change.

Our nation faces a profound truth: we are the most vulnerable country in the world to natural hazards. We see the consequences of this vulnerability magnified year after year. The heavy rains of Typhoon Tino were a hazard, but the sheer catastrophe (in Cebu alone)—the 150 fatalities and 57 still missing, the homes violently swept away—was the reliable result of human failures.

The question we must ask is not if the rain will fall, but why the outcome is so reliably catastrophic.

The Deadly Equation: Hydro-Governance Catastrophe

In 2020, taking a cursory look at all earth-moving events in the Province, we found out that more than 230 of these activities happen in Cebu in various stages. All these happen in a karst geology, and that should help us appreciate the flooding. This suggests that this disaster is not purely natural; it is the direct consequence of a dual systemic failure: a failure of environmental stewardship and a profound crisis of governance.

First, the environment. We cannot ignore the proven correlation between intensive, unregulated earth-moving activities—quarrying and logging—and the severity of the flood. These activities strip the land of its natural capacity to absorb water. They turn our mountain slopes from vital natural assets, functioning like a sponge, into dangerous, highly efficient runoff accelerators. When a storm hits, the ground cannot cope, leading to the rapid flash floods and landslides that have cost so many lives.

Second, the governance crisis. This environmental degradation is catastrophically compounded by a failure in our public works. The infrastructure intended to protect us—our seawalls, dykes, and river defense structures—is often rendered useless because it is technically inefficient, poorly planned, or worst of all, substandard and non-existent due to corruption.

This is the deadly equation: The Hydro-Governance Catastrophe. Public funds, meant for safety, are diverted through mechanisms that reward private gain over public welfare. The failure of the system manifests in delayed, suspended, or outright "ghost" projects. When these substandard structures inevitably fail—as the collapsed riprap did during Tino—they transform a public investment into a massive public liability, putting lives at extreme and instantaneous risk.

The Human Cost and the Poverty Trap

This catastrophe is fundamentally a crisis of structural inequity, ensuring that the most vulnerable populations bear the overwhelming majority of the burdens.

The crisis hits the poor through forced exposure. Economic pressures compel marginalized communities to settle in the most dangerous locations—floodplains, unstable slopes—where they are highly susceptible to inundation and landslides. This forced siting, combined with the downstream impacts from mining and quarrying, constitutes an act of environmental injustice. Communities are forced to bear the burden of environmental risk created by industries they do not control and cannot influence. I remeber the 2 mining disasters in 2018 and 2020 and I think this should have been an indicator of land degradation.

When infrastructure fails due to corruption, it perpetuates a poverty trap. The resulting destruction instantly wipes out accumulated assets, livelihoods, and homes18. Post-disaster recovery efforts, while necessary, are often only sufficient to meet immediate needs, preventing investment in long-term flood management or sustainable economic growth. This recurring cycle of destruction and insufficient recovery drains public resources and entrenches poverty, ensuring continuous reliance on external aid. In short, the disaster undermines a community’s fundamental right to determine its own economic autonomy and future.

Breaking the Vicious Cycle

The perverse irony of this situation is that the very act of recovery entrenches the problem. The immense need to rebuild roads, homes, and failed defenses generates a massive demand for construction materials, which in turn fuels the continuous expansion of the very quarrying and extractive industries that destabilized the environment in the first place. We must break this cycle.

Yes, it is necessary to identify and blame perpetrators, but it is also a time for systemic reform and accountability. We must move from a reactive, costly, and ultimately failed model to a genuine framework of sustainable resilience.

We must commit to three policy shifts:

1. Prioritize Green Infrastructure: We must invest in nature as our first and best line of defense. Restoring forests, mangroves, and wetlands—our natural sponges—not only provides vital flood mitigation but is proven to generate significant long-term returns.
   
   

2. Enforce True Accountability: We need urgent procurement reform and robust, independent oversight. We must ensure that public officials and contractors involved in substandard work are held fully liable, understanding that the theft of funds for flood defense is a direct threat to human life.
   
   

3. Mandate Cumulative Risk Planning: Our land-use policies must be rigorously overhauled. We must demand Environmental Impact Assessments that consider the cumulative effects of extraction, and we must suspend or permanently prohibit earth-moving near critical infrastructure or on unstable slopes.
   
   

Our goal is not merely to rebuild after the next storm, but to build a future where our environment and our governance systems actively work to protect our people, ensuring that the resources of our nation are deployed for genuine, lasting safety and prosperity for all.