N Insights
By Doc Ian Mark Q. Nacaya
Perspectives on Leadership and Community Life
Heavy rain does not only bring floods. In many communities, particularly those near mountains, steep slopes and upland areas, prolonged rainfall can trigger another deadly hazard: rain-induced landslides.
A rain-induced landslide happens when prolonged or intense rainfall saturates the soil. As the ground absorbs more water, it becomes heavier and loses stability. On steep or disturbed slopes, soil, rocks, trees and debris can suddenly move downhill, sometimes with little time for families to escape.
For Local Government Units (LGUs), this danger must be treated as a serious governance and land-use concern.
Prevention Begins Before the Rain – The responsibility of LGUs cannot be limited to evacuation and rescue after a landslide occurs. Good disaster governance means identifying risks before communities are placed in harm’s way.
Hazard maps should therefore become working instruments of local governance. They must guide the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP), zoning ordinances, infrastructure investments, subdivision approvals and the issuance of building permits.
If scientific assessments identify an area as highly susceptible to landslides, government must have the political will to regulate development there. Allowing settlements to expand into dangerous slopes and attempting to evacuate residents only when heavy rains arrive is not sustainable disaster management.
Protecting the Environment Protects Communities – Rainfall may trigger a landslide, but human activities can increase its probability and consequences.
Deforestation, indiscriminate cutting of trees, quarrying, poorly designed hillside roads, uncontrolled excavation, improper drainage and development along unstable slopes can weaken the natural capacity of the land to withstand heavy rainfall.
This is why environmental protection and disaster risk reduction must work together.
LGUs should strengthen watershed and forest protection, regulate quarrying and earth-moving activities, maintain drainage systems, stabilize vulnerable slopes where appropriate, and rehabilitate degraded areas. Development projects in environmentally sensitive locations must undergo serious technical and environmental assessment, not merely compliance on paper.
From Hazard Maps to Community Action – Technology and scientific information are useful only when translated into action. LGUs should regularly coordinate with national agencies and scientific institutions in updating landslide susceptibility information. Barangays must know which sitios and households are located within danger zones. Communities should understand warning signs, such as cracks appearing on the ground or walls, leaning trees or posts, unusual water seepage, and small movements of soil or rocks.
Most importantly, early-warning systems must be connected to clear evacuation protocols. When rainfall thresholds and ground conditions indicate imminent danger, authorities should already know who must evacuate, where they should go, and who is responsible for getting them there.
Difficult Decisions Save Lives – One of the hardest responsibilities of local leadership is dealing with families already living in identified high-risk areas. Relocation is never simply a matter of moving people. Livelihood, transportation, schools, social relationships and access to basic services must also be considered.
But when scientific evidence establishes that an area presents unacceptable danger, government cannot continuously gamble with people’s lives. LGUs must combine enforcement with humane and properly planned resettlement. Climate change is expected to make extreme rainfall an increasingly important challenge for many Philippine communities. We therefore need to expand our understanding of resilience beyond flood control.
Resilient communities must be safe from the river below and from the slopes above. Rain-induced landslides remind us that disasters are not solely acts of nature. Their consequences are greatly influenced by where we build, how we manage our environment, and whether government acts on risks before tragedy happens.
Protecting slopes, forests and watersheds is ultimately about protecting people.
And that is one responsibility LGUs cannot afford to postpone.
Dr. Ian Mark Q. Nacaya is a public administration scholar, urban governance practitioner, and former six-term City Councilor of Cagayan de Oro City. He also served as a two-time Sectoral Representative to the City Council – first as SK City Federation President and later as Liga ng mga Barangay President, and was a three-term Majority Floor Leader. He is the Founder of NACAYA Public-SectoralDev Insights Consulting and serves as a graduate school professor in public administration courses.
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