Critical Junctures in Disaster Governance: Lessons from Marikina City, Philippines Post-Ketsana

Abstract

Disasters as opportunities is an emerging niche of investigation but empirical evidence remains sparse. As such, this paper described how Typhoon Ketsana affected various levels of resilience in Marikina City's disaster governance institution. This determined whether the city has built back a better disaster governance institution post-Ketsana. This also highlighted lessons to Disaster Risk Management (DRM) scholarship and practice. The study proposed a framework to describe the dynamic process of institutional change post-disaster. Data were collected using key informant interviews, document analyses, and literature review, and interpreted them using thematic analysis. The study revealed that Ketsana stimulated systemic interactions leading to policy reforms at the national and local levels, and significant improvements in the city’s disaster governance institution. Extreme events also heightened issue awareness for better disaster governance and emphasized the value of science-driven policy approaches. Furthermore, institutional change after the typhoon highlights the value of human ecology in understanding how non-human factors affect social systems; thus, providing an opportunity for theory-testing and exploratory theoretical framework building to explain lesson-learning from disruptive events. However, comparing pre and post mandate delivery of disaster governance institutions, using bigger case samples for theory-testing, and focusing on micro-level analysis can be explored in future research.