appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Jeoffrey Maitem

When the ground tore open beneath the Philippines last week, Roldan Dante was working in a nearby town. By the time he could return, his home in Glan, Sarangani province, had collapsed. His wife and two young children were gone.
“If only I had known this was going to happen, I would have picked them up,” he told This Week in Asia, as social workers pressed government cash aid into his hands.
“I feel traumatised. I’m in shock and I still can’t accept what happened.”
Dante’s loss speaks to the sheer destructive power of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed at least 68 people. Yet that human toll also exposes the accumulated cost of decades of weak enforcement, political inaction and a society that has not yet made safety a reflex.

Nearly 68,000 homes were damaged or destroyed when the quake hit southern Mindanao on June 8. More than 1,300 people were injured and 33 are still missing.
The tremor triggered tsunami warnings along the southern coast and in neighbouring countries, as it crumpled schools and government buildings in General Santos, the largest and most populous affected city.
It should not have been this bad. The National Structural Code of the Philippines requires buildings to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake – stronger than the one that struck.
“Under the structural code, buildings are supposed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake,” confirmed Office of Civil Defence spokesman Junie Castillo. “Where we need to catch up is in implementation.”
Castillo did not identify any buildings that may have violated construction standards, but the widespread damage in General Santos City and elsewhere in Mindanao has renewed scrutiny of building safety and enforcement.

Fear of the ‘Big One’
Disaster experts told This Week in Asia that the weakness lay less in the code than in inconsistent enforcement, poor compliance and limited awareness of disaster preparedness and risk reduction, particularly among policymakers.
“I believe that many private companies have retrofitted their buildings but I’m not sure about the government buildings,” said Rene “Butch” Meily, president of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation, the country’s main private-sector coordinator for disaster risk reduction.
“I hope they’re aware and retrofitting, but I just don’t know.”
Meily said buildings constructed after 1991 were generally safer, having been built to updated standards introduced following the 1990 Luzon earthquake: a devastating magnitude 7.7 event that killed more than 1,600 people and caused widespread destruction across the Philippines’ main island.

But he warned that stricter rules meant little without stronger enforcement.
“It’s one thing to pass a law and another to enforce it. I hope developers everywhere are aware of their responsibilities and exercise greater care in the construction of their buildings,” Meily said.
“I can’t help worrying about what would happen if a major earthquake hit a large city, especially Metro Manila.”
That worry has a name among disaster planners: the “Big One” – a worst-case scenario in which the Marikina Valley fault system ruptures, potentially destroying 10 per cent or more of structures across one of Asia’s most densely populated metropolitan areas.

Lessons from Tokyo
Despite sitting squarely in the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, where about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur, the Philippines has yet to develop a strong “culture of safety”, according to Dr Teofredo Esguerra, an emergency management specialist at the Energy Development Corporation in Manila.
He contrasted this with the experience of Japan, where “buildings are designed from the ground up to withstand major earthquakes”.
When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck in 2011, the devastation was widespread but most of Tokyo’s big buildings stayed standing, thanks to strict adherence to building standards, public awareness and “technologies such as base isolators, rollers and dampers that absorb seismic energy and reduce shaking”, Esguerra said.
“In the Philippines, buildings are often constructed too close together and safety considerations are not yet deeply embedded in our culture,” he said. “As a result, it is difficult to ensure building codes are consistently followed.”
Taken together, these factors show why we are still not ready
Teofredo Esguerra, emergency management specialist
Esguerra said inadequate public understanding of seismic and volcanic risk; cultural attitudes, including chronic non-compliance with evacuation orders; and a shortage of disaster risk reduction professionals and logistics all undermined the Philippines’ disaster preparedness.
“Taken together, these factors show why we are still not ready,” he said.
Decades-old laws
The legislative backdrop to last week’s disaster adds a particular edge of frustration.
Lawmakers were already pressing for Senate action on an overhaul of the National Building Code (NBC) before the Mindanao quake struck, spurred on by the collapse last month of a nine-storey building under construction in Angeles City that killed dozens.
In December, the House of Representatives approved House Bill No 6615, which would replace the outdated 1977 code with a New Philippine Building Act designed to strengthen structures against earthquakes, fires, floods, landslides, storms and volcanic eruptions. The Senate has yet to act.

Representative Miguel Luis “Migz” Villafuerte of Camarines Sur, a co-author of the bill, is hoping that a Department of Public Works and Highways review of the existing code will force the Senate’s hand.
“The review of the nearly 50-year-old NBC is a crucial step towards ensuring our infra­structure can with­stand the grow­ing threats posed by climate change,” he said.
Esguerra is cautiously supportive of the push, but clear-eyed about the limits of legislation alone.
“You can have strong regulations, but if people do not internalise the importance of preparedness and compliance, nothing will happen,” he said, noting that the Philippines consistently ranked among the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
“Changing that requires a broader shift in mindset and culture, so that future generations of leaders place greater emphasis on risk reduction.”
Meily’s conclusion was more ominous. “Nothing is truly earthquake-proof,” he said. “But structures can be designed and built to be far more earthquake-resilient.”


Philippines weighs pardon for death row inmate repatriated from Indonesia

Philippines impeachment: is path now clear to convict Sara Duterte?

‘Open, close, reopen’: return of choking haze traps Malaysian schools in limbo

Donald Trump built a US$5 million White House helipad. Don’t expect Xi Jinping to use it

The Philippines

Philippines ‘still not ready’ for ‘Big One’ even after latest quake

A worker walks near a collapsed building in General Santos, southern Philippines, on June 8 following the magnitude 7.8 quake. Photo: Reuters

Damaged houses are seen in Glan, Sarangani province, on June 10 after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Photo: Reuters

Rescuers use a search-and-rescue dog to look for trapped people at a collapsed supermarket in Calumpang, General Santos, on June 9. Photo: Reuters

Filipino schoolchildren cover their heads with books during an earthquake drill in Valenzuela City in 2007. Photo: EPA

A woman walks past a photo exhibition in central Tokyo remembering the 1923 earthquake that hit the Japanese capital and surrounding areas, killing more than 100,000 people. Photo: AFP

Rescuers walk past the rubble of a collapsed building in Angeles City, the Philippines’ Pampanga province, on May 25. Photo: AFP

Mindanao quake exposes Philippines’ vulnerability to ‘Big One’ tremor in Metro Manila

People collect their belongings from a damaged house following an earthquake off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday. Photo: Reuters

A damaged shop after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, in General Santos City, Mindanao, the Philippines, on Monday. Photo: Xinhua

Children try to escape as the roof of a structure at Deped Mahayahay Elementary School collapses during an earthquake in Digos, Mindanao, on Monday. Photo: Deped Mahayahay Elementary School/Handout via Reuters

Patients sit at a school after being evacuated from a hospital following an earthquake off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Vehicles damaged by debris after a powerful earthquake hit the Mindanao region in the Philippines on Monday. Photo: Ernesto Torres Jr via AP

Is the ‘Big One’ coming? Earthquake mania grips Philippines as fears mount

Locals look for items in a collapsed house in Manay, in the province of Davao Oriental on October 11, after two powerful quakes struck off the southern Philippines on October 10. Photo: AFP

Patients and their family members stay outside a hospital at the earthquake-hit Manay town, Davao Oriental province, southern Philippines, on October 11. Photo: AP

Business establishments that were damaged due to a recent strong earthquake lie at the Bogo city pier, Cebu province, Central Philippines on October 3. Photo: AP

Residents stay outside their homes for fear of aftershocks at earthquake-hit Bogo city, Cebu province, central Philippines on October 3. Photo: AP

Authorities inspect a damaged wall and a car outside a mall in Butuan City, on the southern island of Mindanao on October 10, after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the southern Philippines. Photo: AFP via Getty Images/TNS

This Week in Asia

Health & Environment

News

Asia

Southeast Asia

As politicians stall on updating a 50-year-old building code, experts warn the devastation in Mindanao is just a preview of a worse disaster


As politicians stall on updating a 50-year-old building code, experts warn the devastation in Mindanao is just a preview of a worse disaster.


Earthquakes

Japan

Philippines ‘still not ready’ for ‘Big One’ even after latest quake

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As politicians stall on updating a 50-year-old building code, experts warn the devastation in Mindanao is just a preview of a worse disaster

As politicians stall on updating a 50-year-old building code, experts warn the devastation in Mindanao is just a preview of a worse disaster