2024 Reports

Metro Manila: Co-Producing, Co-Creating, and Co-Stewarding for

Porio, Emma E.; Uy, Noralene; Rocamora, Maria Theresa Joy G.

Metro Manila, Philippines is a coastal metropolis that has grown unprecedentedly since the 1990s. With its 15 million population and density of 21,000 persons per kilometer within 636 km2, it is one of the most dense and rapidly growing metropolises in Asia. Rapid urbanization, intensified capitalist development of a services-driven economy, and consumption-driven lifestyles have heightened climate and disaster risks in the metropolis. These development patterns drive the social-ecological transitions of Philippines cities, exacerbating the climate and disaster impacts on existing environmental inequalities and gendered intersectionalities (socio-economic status, migrant/non-migrant, etc.) in vulnerable communities. While the poor have contributed the least to global warming, they incur the most losses and damages, yet receive little public-private support. In response to these challenges, local government units, NGOs/CSOs, academia, and the private sector have collaborated on climate and disaster resilience innovations towards a resilient and sustainable city. This case study interrogates the intersections of increasing climate and disaster risks, urban development, and the widening of social-environmental inequalities alongside the multiple layering of social intersectionalities in the risk governance systems of the metropolis.