Every year, floods inundate the streets of Metro Manila. With every bout of monsoon rain, headlines fill with reports of flooded homes, unpassable streets, and stranded commuters. The public narrative follows a familiar script: climate change is the main culprit, followed by the behaviors of the informal settlers.
The recent statement of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is an example. It pointed to PAGASA’s data showing increased rainfall in the past decade, arguing that these have overwhelmed drainage systems in the metropolis.
While this is technically (and scientifically) accurate, it begs the bigger questions: Why haven’t our cities been designed to cope with these worsening climatic events? Who decided what got built and who got left in harm’s way?
To view flooding as simply a meteorological issue is to fall into the trap of what scholars refer to as environmental determinism. It imagines nature as the sole cause of the problem and conveniently erases the complex historical, political, and economic decisions that render certain people and places more vulnerable than others.
Floods are more than just about excessive material flows of water. They are a product of capitalism, extractivism, and economic and development decisions made by powerful actors.
Colonial roots and capitalist cities
To understand why Manila floods so easily, it is imperative to go back to the city’s history. Being the country’s capital, Manila had a boom in investment after World War II. Investment flowed into rebuilding the capital, but housing for workers was never prioritized that, by 1981, more than 1.6 million people were living in informal settlements. Rather than integrating these communities, the government relocated thousands of families to the city’s fringes, institutionalizing forced resettlements.
These patterns deepened during the Marcos Sr. regime, which pursued grand infrastructure and flood control projects that evicted urban poor families in the name of modernization. The debt from these projects forced the country to privatize urban services and reduce social spending. These austerity measures shattered the poor and dislocated them further to the peripheries.
In the decades that followed, the government shifted towards a market-oriented land use and housing policy that promoted private and corporate ownership of land in urban areas. While informal settlers were criminalized, legislation such as the 1992 Urban Development and Housing Act broadened the scope of private sector participation in the National Shelter Program. This, in turn, benefitted the big banks that funded mortgage plans and housing loans. As loans expanded, foreign investors and local banks began working together with developers and construction firms, turning housing into a major profit-making industry.
Who are responsible?
Decades of neoliberal policies have enriched real estate companies and political elites, allowing them not only to profit from housing projects but initiate new development projects, such as shopping centers, built on reclaimed land and former wetlands.
Flooding in Metro Manila is therefore a result of how powerful stakeholders have reshaped the land and built infrastructure on what were once marshlands and natural waterways. The rapid urbanization of the metro has consequently become a flood risk multiplier, and yet these trends continue largely unchecked in the name of economic growth.
The pursuit of tourism and beautification offers another telling example. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) recently admitted that the much-publicized dolomite beach along Manila Bay may have contributed to the flooding of nearby roads. Consequently, the project exacerbated the risks it was meant to address.
These examples raise the question: Who really benefits from these development projects, and who pays the price?
Rewriting the narrative
Flooding is also a reflection of the beliefs and values that we have built our cities on. The government’s preferred responses of relocation and building higher floodwalls reveal a mindset of eviction and control. To build a more resilient Metro Manila, we must rewrite this narrative and rethink the values that underpin it.
First, we have separated ourselves from nature, treating it as something to be conquered. In lieu of forests and open spaces, shopping malls and condominiums have been built. Rewriting the narrative means designing our cities with nature, not against it.
Second, we have separated ourselves from one another, especially from the urban poor who are used as scapegoats for flooding. Policies that evict and displace them in the name of “safety” deepen their vulnerability. Rewriting the narrative means working with them collaboratively to make them more climate resilient.
Finally, we have separated ourselves from other ways of knowing about the climate. Technocratic solutions dominate, while indigenous and local knowledge about water and the environment are rendered ineffective and illegitimate. Rewriting the narrative means valuing diverse knowledge systems and learning from communities who have long lived with water.
Flooding in Metro Manila isn’t just about the amount and volume of rain. It is also the visible outcome of invisible forces such as colonial histories, profit-driven development, and decades of policies that have prioritized capital over care. We don’t need more defective flood control infrastructures. We need better politics instead, one that recognizes the important role that the past has played in shaping our cities, centers the needs of the most vulnerable, and embraces diverse knowledge in addressing the climate crisis. – Rappler.com
Dr. Justin See is a lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences (The University of Melbourne). His research critically explores the intersections of climate risk, socio-economic inequality, and power, with a focus on how communities in the Philippines are affected by and respond to climate change.