The Case of Palawan: When Typhoons and Floods Batter Local Memory

A heartfelt statement by a local resident about the typhoon that hit his region in Palawan underscored how disaster experiences are remembered by residents, raising questions about how memories shape disaster preparedness in communities. Speaking to a local reporter about his flood-submerged house after Super Typhoon Kalmegi hit the province in November 2025, Celso said:  “Right now, I am sad because it’s our second time to experience this. The first was during Typhoon Odette. And now, this. We could not save our things.”

Typhoon Kalmegi hit the northern part of the province in the western part of the Philippines, where tourism activities are concentrated. The local government declared a state of calamity that allowed the fast disbursement of funds and also called for the immediate completion of significantly delayed flood control projects. This typhoon came on the heels of recovery efforts that were still ongoing with communities that were severely impacted by Super Typhoon Rai, which plunged the entire province into darkness on 17 December 2021.

These typhoons exposed the fragility of the province’s infrastructure and the limits of its preparedness. The devastation once again laid bare how even one of the country’s most celebrated tourist sites was ill-equipped to avert disasters, particularly flooding, that are becoming more frequent and severe.

According to experts, there is a notable gap in the coastal residents’ memory regarding the timelines and contexts of the disasters that affected them. Often, lessons and best practices are not documented and disseminated effectively to implementers of disaster mitigation programmes as well as community members. For instance, Super Typhoon Rai highlighted the limitations of a centralised logistics hub and the subsequent need for smaller satellite hubs to facilitate timely aid delivery in cases where infrastructure has failed. While such smaller hubs have been implemented in Puerto Princesa, the province’s capital, they have not been fully replicated across Palawan. This gap in the remembrance of disaster experiences, together with other factors such as less accessible reporting on disaster impacts and a locality’s history of disaster management, has contributed to gaps in disaster preparedness.

Effective engagement with disaster collective memory is critical for inclusive disaster preparedness and recovery. In cases like Celso’s, a recurring question emerges: have the lessons of Super Typhoon Rai been recognised and acted upon, especially as compounding disasters compress recovery timelines, reshape risk patterns, and make disaster memory harder to sustain? If the answer is yes, local governments should support the move towards anticipatory rather than reactive approaches to reduce the structural drivers to flood risk and the cascading crises affecting residents and other species.

In many ways, the case of Palawan reflects the complex and layered issue of flooding in the Philippines. Flooding is often framed in official disaster accounts and media narratives as a natural outcome of stronger typhoons and climate change. Yet typhoons like Kalmegi reveal that flooding is equally shaped by governance, planning, and long-standing neglect. This is a point that has been  raised by affected communities and advocates. From a critical urban perspective, flooding in Puerto Princesa is not simply the result of extreme weather, but a consequence of how urban spaces are planned and governed.

For residents who remain displaced long after floodwaters recede, disaster preparedness is not an abstract concept discussed in conferences or policy documents. It is measured by whether homes remain dry, warnings arrive on time, and recovery is possible.

Palawan, like many other parts of the country, suffers from improper urban planning that reflects a persistent forgetting of ecological contexts and past flood experiences. The unmitigated growth of private infrastructure like shopping malls, gated villages, and recreational centres has resulted in poorly planned development that disregards natural terrain and waterways. In Puerto Princesa, flooding in some areas has been attributed to the obstruction of river pathways and the construction of private buildings within hazard zones. This raises questions about how permits were secured and whether inclusive risk assessments informed by past disasters were properly conducted.

But adequate flood-mitigation infrastructure has not kept pace with rapid urbanisation and the expansion of surrounding areas shaped by uneven planning and governance. Precariously tenured communities around Puerto Princesa lack proper drainage systems, flood control measures, and early warning mechanisms.  This condition is common to the other urban centres across the country, where communities remain marginalised due to the lack of legal documents required by the State. This neglect is not accidental. It reflects a politics of exclusion where access to safe living spaces, drainage, and protection from flooding remains unevenly distributed. Flooding then becomes not only an environmental issue but also raises questions like who is protected and who is left to cope on their own.

Disaster preparedness in the Philippines remains largely state-centric. While government intervention is necessary, this approach often sidelines community knowledge of local terrain, water flows, and risk patterns. It also limits the uptake of nature-based and community-led solutions. The privileging of technocratic and top-down interventions devalues indigenous local knowledge systems. The latter includes community narratives of safety protocols, resilient food systems, and everyday practices that could promote more sustainable, inclusive, and context-specific responses to flooding.

Finally, recurring allegations of corruption in national and local flood control infrastructure intensify the precarity of people affected by disasters by disrupting institutional learning and accountability. Flooding in the Philippines is cyclical, not because solutions are unavailable. Reports have documented alleged misuse of resources, which prevents the translation of lessons from past disasters into sustained action. Corruption can manifest in multiple ways: in the misuse of flood control funds, in the approval of infrastructure projects in hazard-prone areas (in violation of land-use and risk-reduction regulations), and in the prioritisation of private interests. As flood control projects get delayed or discontinued, communities endure routine evacuations, short-term dole-outs, and disruptions. In this vicious cycle, corruption not only drains public funds: it erodes trust, distorts disaster memory, and undermines accountability.

For residents who remain displaced long after floodwaters recede, disaster preparedness is not an abstract concept discussed in conferences or policy documents. It is measured by whether homes remain dry, warnings arrive on time, and recovery is possible. As flooding continues to shape everyday life in provinces like Palawan, the question remains not only whether the local government is prepared, but whether it is willing to adopt innovative approaches that engage local knowledge systems and memory.

2026/27