ADAPTATION BEHAVIOR OF VULNERABLE COASTAL

HOUSEHOLDS IN THE RURAL PHILIPPINES WHEN TYPHOON

MILENYO STRIKES

Jonna P. Estudillo
Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development and
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Tokyo, Japan

Background Paper for Conference on the ―Environments of the Poor‖

24-26 November 2010, New Delhi

Abstract

This study explores adaptation behavior of rural households in response to the super
typhoon Milenyo. These households live in a village located in coastal region of
Laguna in the Philippines. Milenyo exerted a wide degree of heterogeneity in
damages across households even within the same village. While there were no
reports of deaths or serious physical injuries, many households reported damages
on residential houses and decline in income emanating from damages to rice crop
and standing fruit trees. Surprisingly, many farmer households reported no damage
to their crop because they used portable water pumps and short growing rice
varieties that enabled them to plant and harvest early before Milenyo strikes.
Diversification of income in favor of nonfarm sources, accepting assistance from the
local government, engaging in emergency borrowing, receiving remittances, and
reducing food consumption were major household coping mechanisms in the
aftermath of Milenyo. Local government had undertaken effective relief operations
through its close collaboration with the village officials, who were able to correctly
identify households needing the most immediate help. The major policy response is
to stimulate the development of nonfarm sector and strengthen agricultural research
and extension services.

The views expressed in this paper/presentation are the views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or
policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not
guarantee the source, originality, accuracy, completeness or reliability of any statement, information, data, finding,
interpretation, advice, opinion, or view presented, nor does it make any representation concerning the same.
I. Introduction

The Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) (2009)

reported a dramatic rise in the number of natural disasters in the world in the past
decade. While CRED did not show solid scientific evidence that climate change is a
causal factor, there has been a tenfold increase in the number of climate-related
events such as droughts, storms, and floods since the data were first collected in
1950.
In 2009, the Philippines occupied the topmost rank in terms of disaster
occurrence with 25 events, followed by China with 24, and the United States with 16
(CRED, 2009). Of the 25 events, 14 were classified as meteorological (typhoon), 9
were hydrological (flood and landslide), and 2 were geophysical (volcanic eruption
and earthquake). The three strong typhoons in 2009Kiko (―Morakot‖), Ondoy
(―Ketsana‖), and Pepeng (―Parma‖)were three of the most devastating in terms of
number of victims and extent of damage to property. According to the Philippine
Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA),
there were, on average, 20 storms entering the Philippine Area of Responsibility
every year from 1948 to 2004. Given that meteorological events occur frequently in
this country, it is necessary to identify risk reduction strategies and coping
mechanisms to alleviate the negative effects of a meteorological disaster.
This paper presents a case study of disaster management strategies undertaken
by households and local government in response to storm Milenyo (international
code name Xangsane) that hit the Philippines on 28 September 2006. Milenyo was
considered a disaster as it is an unforeseen event that caused great damage,
destruction and human suffering which overwhelms local capacity (CRED, 2009).
Evidences in this paper come from a dataset drawn from a household survey
conducted in a barangay ―called East Laguna Village (Hayami and Kikuchi, 2000)―
on February 2007 barely 4 months after the devastation by Milenyo.
This study has four important findings from the experience of East Laguna
Village. First, the damages caused Milenyo were largely idiosyncratic varying widely
across households even within the same village depending on the ownership of
paddy fields and tree crops. Households who earn income from a wide range of
nonfarm economic activities and those who use small-scale irrigation pumps were
much less or not affected at all. Farmers who were using pumps were able to plant
and harvest early before Milenyo strikes. Second, income diversification in favor of
nonfarm sources had offered the best insurance mechanism in the face of a
declining income in agriculture caused by Milenyo. Third, reduction in protein
expenditure was an important coping mechanism in the aftermath of Milenyo.
Community and personal networks in securing emergency loans and receiving
remittances were particularly important for the landless poor, who have limited
access to formal credit market. Fourth, and finally, targeting the badly affected
households—by providing temporary shelter and food baskets—were undertaken
effectively by the local government through the office of the village chieftain. Poorer
households identified food basket as one of their more important coping mechanisms
that enabled them to survive Milenyo.
This paper is divided into four sections. Section II describes the economic
environment and identifies aspects of household vulnerability and household
adaptation behavior. Section III assesses the damages wrought by Milenyo,
identifies the coping mechanisms of the households, and describes the relief

2
operations conducted by local government and civil society. Section IV summarizes
this report and identifies policy implications.

II. Economic environment and vulnerability in a coastal village1

Village environment, vulnerability, and adaptation behavior

Here we describe the environment of households living in a village—called East

Laguna Village—where Hayami and Kikuchi (2000) conducted 11 survey rounds
between 1966 and 1997. Follow-up survey in 2003 was conducted by the
International Rice Research Institute and in 2007 by Yasuyuki Sawada. Hayami and
Kikuchi (2000) described this village as a typical rice village in Laguna when they
conducted their first survey in 1974.
This village is surrounded by wet rice fields and there is little difference in the
elevation between rice fields and Laguna de Bay, so the rice fields are oftentimes
flooded during the rainy season. Water logging is one cause of income vulnerability
in the village as rice production is a major source of household income. Water
logging decreases rice income—it has a direct negative effect on rice yield and
decreases farm gate price as wet paddy commands a lower market price. Flooding
in the residential areas is also common during typhoon and heavy monsoon. As a
precautionary measure, houses were constructed in slightly higher grounds with
elevated floors to reduce the risk of rain water sipping through the floors.
Households in the village consist of three major classes: (1) farmer households,
who operate their own farms, either as tenants or as owners; (2) landless
households, who have no farm to operate but eke out a living on casual farm work;
and (3) nonagricultural households, who are purely employed in the nonagricultural
sectorsalary work (teachers, clerks, and factory workers) and self-employed
activities in commerce and transport. Landless households are the poorest in this
village community. They are also the most vulnerable because the damages inflicted
by a meteorological disaster could fall heavily on rice production from which they
earn income doing transplanting, weeding, and harvesting activities.
It is noticeable that the number of landless households rose more rapidly than did
the farmer households from 1966 to 1995 (Table 1). The sharp rise in the number of
these households can be attributed to population pressure, land reform regulations
on tenancy contracts, and increased demand for hired labor associated with the
diffusion of MVs and the substitution of hired for family labor. The land reform laws
prohibit the transfer of cultivation rights acquired through the land reform to other
parties, except to legitimate heirs, thereby limiting the opportunities of landless
households to become tenant farmers.
A spectacular growth in the number of nonagricultural households is evident from
1995 to 2007 and this was due to the opening of a relatively low-priced residential
subdivision in 2000 that attracted nonagricultural households from nearby areas.
These nonagricultural households are engaged in a wide range of nonagricultural
activities. A meteorological disaster that affects rice production may have no direct
impact on employment opportunities available to these households while they may
experience the brunt of the disaster through high rice prices.

1
Parts of this section were drawn from Estudillo et al (2010).

3
Modern rice technology reduces risks

The village had the long tradition of single-cropped rice production until 1958 with
the opening of gravity irrigation systems built and maintained by the National
Irrigation Administration (NIA). Farmers in this village were the earliest to adopt
modern variety (MV) of rice because of the presence of a well-developed irrigation
infrastructure and access to information regarding new rice technology owing to
proximity of the village to the International Rice Research Institute and University of
the Philippines at Los Banos. Farmers continued to upgrade their rice seeds by
planting newly released MVs that are generally characterized by shorter growing
period—traditional rices have growth duration varying from 160 to 180 days while
MVs have 90 to 110 days.
Hayami and Kikuchi (2000) reported a serious deterioration in the village
irrigation in July 1995, when NIA’s irrigation had reached only about 20 percent of
the village paddy fields. This situation encouraged farmers to buy small-scale pump
irrigation system that resulted to variations in the timings of rice production activities
within the village. The adoption of potable water pumps and MVs with shorter
growing period enabled some farmers to evade the destruction of Milenyo as they
were able to plant and harvest before Milenyo hit the village.
According to PAGASA, a large number of tropical disturbances in the Philippines
occur in October and November. The availability of portable water pumps and
shorter growing MVs were instrumental in reducing the risks of crop damages by
enabling farmers to plant in early June and harvest in mid- to late- August to avoid
the October-November spell of tropical disturbances.

Changing sources of household income

Occupation of economically active population of 13 to 65 years old in the village

could be divided into (1) farm (rice production, duck raising, fishing, and casual work)
and (2) nonfarm (formal salaried work, construction, and entrepreneurial activity in
trade, transport, commerce, and rural industry). There has been a shift of
occupational structure away from farm to nonfarm from 1974 to 1997. Among the
males, the proportion of those engaged in agriculture declined from 81 percent to 53
percent, those in nonagriculture increased from 18 percent to 44 percent, and those
unemployed increased from 1 percent to 3 percent. Among the females, the
proportion of those engaged in agriculture declined from 21 percent to 15 percent,
those in nonagriculture increased from 19 percent to 38 percent, and those who are
housekeepers decreased from 60 percent to 47 percent (Hayami and Kikuchi, 2000,
Table 3.7, p.59).
The shift of occupational choice away from farm to nonfarm is an ex-ante risk
management strategy. Income from nonfarm sources is generally not affected by the
vagaries of weather thereby serving as a self-insurance scheme against the
damages of meteorological disasters. Other forms of self-insurance reported in the
literature are (1) financial and physical asset accumulation, (2) crop diversification,
(3) share cropping, (4) household savings, and (5) micro-credit schemes (Alderman
and Paxon, 1992; Skoufias, 2003, Sawada, 2007). These self-insurance schemes
could be effective in small localized disasters, where shocks are largely idiosyncratic

4
across households as in the case of Milenyo, but could be proven ineffective in the
context of mega natural disasters, where shocks are largely covariate (Sawada,
2007; Yang, 2006).
Shift in occupation choice is accompanied by changes in the sources of
household income. A larger proportion of household income came from farm
sources in 1974/76 and 1980/83 (Table 2) including rice farming, livestock and
poultry raising, propagation of high-value tree crops, backyard vegetable farming,
and farm wages. Nonfarm sources included formal salary work in the government
and the private sector, as well as self-employed enterprises in commerce,
manufacturing, and transport. In 1995/96, income from nonfarm activities had
become the dominant source of income because of the increase in nonfarm wage
earnings and remittances from members working outside the village, including
overseas contract workers. The proportion of nonfarm income became particularly
large in 2006 because of the increase in the number of nonagricultural households.
In brief, it is clear that households in this village have diversified their economic
activities away from farm to nonfarm. As will be discussed later, income
diversification is an effective self-insurance scheme that enabled the households in
this village to deal with economic shocks wrought by Milenyo. Household-specific
self-insurance scheme could be the dominant strategy in disaster-prone areas
because households shoulder the largest portion of disaster damage while
emergency funds from government and civil society could be provided to them.
It is important to mention that the shift in household income structure was
facilitated by improvements in the level of human capital of the labor force. In 1966,
about a half of the total village labor force had had education up to only grade 4 or
below and about 20 percent had had no formal schooling. In 1997, in contrast, only
20 percent of the labor had had education of up to grade 4 only, about one-third had
had reached elementary grade 5-6 level, and about a third with high school
education while those with no formal schooling represented only 2 percent of the
labor force. Those who obtained university education represented 13 percent of the
labor force.

III. Coping mechanisms and government programs2

Damages wrought by Milenyo

A super typhoon Milenyo hit the Philippines directly hitting Laguna, where East
Laguna Village is located. According to CRED, Milenyo was the tenth most
destructive disaster in the world in 2006. Here we discuss the extent of damages
caused by Milenyo and identify the disaster management strategies that were
undertaken by the households and local government. Our data came from a survey
conducted by Sawada et al (2009). We identify the strategies of three sets of
householdsfarming households, landless households, and nonagricultural
householdsas the degree of vulnerability varies across these types of households.
We also review the effectiveness of the relief operations undertaken by the local
government in the context of correctly identifying the most affected households.

2
Parts of this section were drawn from Estudillo et al (2010) and Sawada et al (2009).

5
 There was a wide degree of heterogeneity in damages caused by Milenyo, even
within the same village. As to human losses, there were no reported dead or
seriously injured persons, thanks to the extensive television and radio broadcast on
the intensity of Milenyo that made households aware of its potential damages. A
total of 106 households (27 percent) encountered serious damage to their house—
typically either the roofing was completely or partially destroyed (Table 3). Including
the cases of multiple damages, 54 percent among the farmers and 27 percent
among the landless reported having had the experience of a decline in income,
especially because of damage to the standing rice crop. Interestingly, damage to
crops, which was severe among fruit crops, appears to be common, even among the
nonagricultural households.
Paddy harvest in the village as a whole declined by about 72 tons (i.e.,32 percent
decline from the normal harvest), whereas paddy price declined from the expected
price of PHP8.89 per kg to PHP7.44 per kg (i.e., 16 percent reduction from the
normal price). The loss in paddy production was, on average, PHP260 per
household, which is almost equivalent to the minimum wage rate of PHP277 per day
(equivalent to US$5.29 at US$1=PHP52.35). In contrast, the total loss in standing
mango tree was PHP680 per household, which is 2.72 times the minimum wage rate
per day. Clearly, there was heterogeneity in Milenyo damages, depending on the
ownership of fruit trees and paddy fields.

Coping mechanisms

Households in the village were able to cope with Milenyo by adopting five
important strategies, that is, by (1) reducing food consumption and switching
consumption from purchased food to own produce; (2) obtaining emergency loans
from relatives and village moneylenders; (3) receiving remittances; (4) receiving aid
from local government and private individuals; and (5) engaging in nonfarm
employment.
Households change the quality and composition of food expenditures in
response to a natural or manmade disaster as reported in the literature (Frankenberg,
Smith, and Thomas, 2003; McKenzie, 2006; Strauss et al., 2004; Kang and Sawada,
2008). A larger proportion (76 percent) of the landless households compared with
farmer (27 percent) and nonagricultural households (47 percent) reported to have
decreased their food purchases while maintaining their total nutritional intake by
shifting to consumption of own fish catch (or given by relatives).
Among the food items, there was a decline in the expenditure on rice (7 percent)
as well as in more expensive rice substitutes such as pandesal bread, bread loaf and
native cakes. There was also decline in the expenditure for the more expensive
protein sources such as pork and milk and an increase in the expenditure allocated
for cheaper protein from chicken and fish. Interestingly, there was an increase in
expenditure for house repair apparently made necessary by Milenyo.
It is important to mention that the brunt of Milenyo was felt more severely by the
landless poor as the gap in food expenditure between farmer and landless group
rose. One week before Milenyo the expenditure of the landless households was 34
percent of that of the farmer households while one week after Milenyo, the
expenditure of the landless became only 20 percent of that of the farmer.
Expenditure on firewood went up substantially while the expenditure on LPG and
charcoal went down indicating that many households shifted their fuel use away from

6
LPG and charcoal to firewood. Both LPG and charcoal were imported from outside
the village and that their prices rose after Milenyo while firewood prices declined
because of the abundance of fallen trees.
The shift to firewood from LPG as energy source in cooking in response to high
LPG prices may have negative environmental impacts. Indeed, according to
Anbumozhi and Bauer (2010), the reliance of households on traditional fuels such as
firewood had declined in most Asian countries presumably because of the decline in
the prices of commercial energy substitutes. A surge in the price of commercial
energy could trigger changes in land use patterns leading to loss of forests cover,
Borrowing from close relatives is one of the more important coping strategies
during disaster time (Glewwe and Hall, 1998; Sawada and Shimizutani, 2008)
because rural households lack consumption insurance which is compensated for by
having an access to an informal credit market (Glewwe and Hall, 1998). Also, rural
households are constrained from borrowing from the formal credit market because of
high information costs and lack of assets for collateral.
In this village, the village moneylenders, who are community members, played an
important role as sources of emergency funds. For the landless, the nearby sari-sari
(village variety) stores provided either on credit or cash purchase the most basic
needs such as rice, canned goods, candles, and kerosene, evidence that village
stores do not hoard basic goods during calamity perhaps because of intricate close
associations among the village people that prohibit opportunistic behavior.
As reported in earlier studies (Otsuka, Estudillo and Sawada, 2009), remittances
have become an important source of income in rural Philippines because of the rise
in the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). There were 31 OFWs in this
village as of the 2007 survey. Twenty-five percent of the farmer households, 16
percent of the landless households, and 21 percent of the nonagricultural
households reported having received remittances after Milenyo. In brief, the
availability of emergency borrowing and remittances indicate the importance of
personal networks in surviving a crisis.

Public transfers

The local government through the village officials played a particularly important
and effective role during the disaster by (1) immediately opening the village meeting
hall as a temporary shelter to households that lost their roofs or were affected by
flash floods, (2) distributing grocery bags containing the most basic food items
valued at about US$2 per household, (3) providing galvanized iron sheets to 16
households whose houses lost their roofs, and (4) giving cash gifts amounting to
about US$50 to eight households.
There was also strict food price and supply monitoring undertaken by the local
government in the local public market in order to avoid unnecessary price hikes and
disruption of local food supply maneuvered by opportunistic businessmen. The
national government declared the province of Laguna under a state of emergency.
Overall, the disaster management was effective because there was no substantial
information asymmetry between the donor and the recipient of aid owing to the
village officials’ many years of association with the community.

7
Nonfarm employment

Nonfarm employment served an important role in consumption smoothing in the

face of a disaster, which is consistent with past studies in India (Walker and Ryan,
1990; Kochar, 1999) and Indonesia (Frankenberg, Smith, and Thomas, 2003). This
is done by increasing the number of workers, extending labor hours, or migrating to
places where there are jobs (Kochar, 1999; Walker and Ryan, 1990, Rose, 2000;
Smith, et al, 2002). Even child labor income, which requires dropping out of
education, is used as a coping device against parental income shortfalls (Jacoby and
Skoufias, 1997; Sawada and Lokshin, 2009).
We cannot identify major changes in the primary occupation after Milenyo, which
indicates that it is the long-term employment in the nonfarm sector that enabled the
households to insure against the disaster. The number of unemployed—those
workers who reported ―none‖ in the primary occupation—rose from 57 to 67 people,
indicating an increase in unemployment rate by 18 percent.
Household income sources have changed in favor of nonfarm sources as
occupational structure of the labor force shifted to nonfarm. Such shift had been
facilitated by improvements in the level of schooling of village labor force and
transportation infrastructure. Manila South Super Highway (now called South Luzon
Expressway) was extended to Calamba and Masapang Highway was opened that
decreased transportation time from the village to Manila by about two hours.
Meanwhile, urban-industrial activities in manufacturing spilled over to local towns in
Laguna on the east coast providing employment opportunities to younger
generation in the village.

Coping with smaller typhoons

Typhoons occur in this village almost regularly during monsoon months but the
extent of damage caused by Milenyo was by far exceptionally large. During regular
typhoons that hit the village between 1994 and 2003, ―own savings and income‖ and
―help from relatives‖ were the main coping mechanisms. Sale of physical assets,
such as land or animals, and consumption reallocation played minor roles regardless
of the type of shocks (e.g., floods and typhoons and death or illness of a household
member).
Liquidation of physical assets and borrowing and receipts of assistance and
remittances from family members living outside the household were found in both the
responses to Milenyo and smaller typhoons. A major difference, however, appears
to be the importance of reduction in food consumption and consumption reallocation
in response to Milenyo reflecting the sheer magnitude of the damages to the
households. During regular typhoons households were able to shield their
consumption through various informal insurance schemes (e.g., own savings and
incomes, borrowing, and remittances), but the extent of income shock brought by
Milenyo forced them to reduce their food consumption. A much larger proportion of
households reported government aid as a coping mechanism after Milenyo because
the severity of the damage of Milenyo necessitated larger scale relief operations on
the part of the local government.

8
IV. Summary and policy issues

This study explores adaptation behavior of rural households in response to the

super typhoon Milenyo. These households live in a coastal village—called East
Laguna Village— located in the province of Laguna in the Philippines. Milenyo
exerted a wide degree of heterogeneity in damages across households even within
the same village. Households adapted five important strategies: (1) reducing
expenditures on food—rice, bread, and meat—and switching consumption away
from purchased foods to own produced foods, (2) receiving informal assistance from
relatives and friends, (3) receiving remittances, (4) receiving aid from local
government and private individuals, and (5) long-term engagement in nonfarm
employment. The poor landless households were those who conspicuously
decreased their food consumption as a way of surviving Milenyo. Community
networks in securing emergency loans and personal networks in receiving
remittances and the active local government participation in managing the disaster
were particularly important for the landless poor. Overall, it is clear that the
idiosyncratic shocks created by Milenyo were met by both private and public
transfers.
What were the lessons from the Milenyo experience in East Laguna Village? First,
assistance from relatives and friends served as informal risk sharing scheme
indicating that the community can play the role of an effective insurance mechanism
against various forms and intensity of idiosyncratic shocks (Estudillo et al, 2010;
Sawada, 2007). Self-insurance―defined here as insurance against income
uncertainty through own savings and dissavings― was reported by the villagers as
one of their most important ex ante risk management strategies in smaller regularly
occurring typhoons,. Second, the role of the local government was highlighted as
playing a complementary role to community mechanism. Transfers from the local
government during relief operations in the aftermath of Milenyo were targeted to the
right recipients. The office of the village chieftain took the major responsibility in
distributing aid thereby decreasing the amount of imperfect information and
uncertainties on beneficiaries. Yet it is important to mention that in the case of
covariant shocks, community mechanism may prove to be largely ineffective and
only the state could effectively undertake a large scale relief operation against a
mega disaster. Third, development of nonfarm sector offers the best hope to reduce
the risk of an income shock in agriculture. It is by now well known that participation in
nonfarm labor market is a pathway out of poverty (Otsuka, Estudillo, and Sawada,
2009) and a strategy to diversify rural household income to avoid a drastic reduction
in consumption in response to a disaster (Sawada, 2007). Fourth, and finally, on
natural disasters that are frequently occurring such as typhoons, floods, and
droughts, it is important to design ex ante risk management policies. Disaster
preparedness strategies such as infrastructure and building safety, drainage system
to reduce flooding, and early warning systems could enable rural households to
better protect themselves against climate related disasters.

9
References

Alderman, H. and Paxon, C.H. (1992) ―Do the Poor Insure? A Synthesis of Literature
on Risk and Consumption in developing Countries‖ World Bank Policy Research
Working Paper 1008, World Bank, Washington, DC.

Anbumozhi, V. and A. Bauer (2010) ―Impact of Global Recession on Sustainable

Development and Poverty Linkages‖ ADBI Working Paper Number 227, Asian
Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, Japan.

Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) (2009), Annual Disaster

Statistical Review. Brussels, Belgium.

Estudillo, J. P., Y. Sawada, N. Fuwa, K. Kajisa, and M. Kikuchi (2010) ―The

Transformation of Hayami’s Village‖ Ch.14 In Otsuka, K. and K. Kalirajan (eds).
Community, Market, and State in Development: Papers in Honor of Yujiro Hayami,
UK: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

Frankenberg, E., J.P. Smith and D. Thomas (2003) ―Economic Shocks, Wealth, and
Welfare‖ Journal of Human Resources 38(2): 280-321.

Glewwe, P. and G. Hall (1998) ―Are Some Groups More Vulnerable to

Macroeconomic Shocks Than Others? Hypothesis Tests Based on Panel Data from
Peru‖ Journal of Development Economics 56(1): 181-206.

Hayami, Y. and M. Kikuchi (2000) A Rice Village Sage: Three Decades of Green
Revolution in the Philippines, London: Macmillan Press.

Jacoby, H. and E. Skoufias (1997) ―Risk, Financial Markets and Human Capital in
Developing Countries‖, Review of Economic Studies, 64, 311-335.

Kang, S.J and Y. Sawada (2008) ―A Credit Crunch and Household Welfare in Korea‖,
Japanese Economic Review, 59(4): 438-458.

Kochar, A. (1999) ―Smoothing Consumption by Smoothing Income: Hours of Work

Responses to Idiosyncratic Agricultural Shocks in Rural India‖ Review of Economics
and Statistics 8(1); 50-61.

McKenzie, D. J. (2006) ―The Consumer Response to the Mexican Peso Crisis‖,

Economic Development and Cultural Change 55(1): 139–172.

Otsuka, K., J. P. Estudillo and Y. Sawada (2009) Rural Poverty and Income
Dynamics in Asia and Africa. Routledge, London.

Rose, E. (2000) ―Gender Bias, Credit Constraints and Time Allocation in Rural
India‖, Economic Journal, 110 (465): 738-758.

Sawada, Y. (2007) ―The Impact of Natural and Manmade Disasters on Household

Welfare‖, Agricultural Economics 37(7): 59-73.

10
Sawada, Y. and M. Lokshin (2009) ―Obstacles to School Progression in Rural
Pakistan: An Analysis of Gender and Sibling Rivalry Using Field Survey Data‖,
Journal of Development Economics, 88: 335-347.

Sawada, Y. and S. Shimizutani (2008), "How Do People Cope With Natural

Disasters? Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake," Journal of
Money, Credit, and Banking 40 (2-3): 463-488.

Skoufias, E. (2003) ―Economic Crises and Natural Disasters: Coping Strategies and
Policy Implications‖, World Development 31 (7): 1087-1102.

Smith, J. P., D. Thomas, E. Frankenberg, K. Beegle, and G. Teruel (2002) ―Wages,

Employment and Economic Shocks: Evidence from Indonesia‖, Journal of Population
Economics 15(1): 161–193.

Strauss, J., K. Beegle, A. Dwiyanto, Y. Herawati, D. Pattinasarany, E. Satriawan, B.

Sikoki, Sukamdi, and F. Witoelar (2004) Indonesian Living Standards before and
after the Financial Crisis: Evidence from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, Rand
Corporation and ISEAS.

Walker, T.S. and J. G. Ryan (1990), Village and Household Economics in India's
Semi-Arid Tropics, Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore.

Yang, D. (2006), ―Why Do Migrants Return to Poor Countries? Evidence from

Philippine Migrants' Responses to Exchange Rate Shocks,‖ Review of Economics
and Statistics 88(4): 715-735.

11
 Table 1

Number of households, East Laguna Village, Philippines, 1966-2007

Year Farmer Landless Nonagricultural Total

1966 46 20 0 66
1
(70) (30) (0) (100)
1976 54 55 0 109
(50) (50) (0) (100)
1987 53 98 7 158
(34) (62) (4) (100)
1995 51 150 41 242
(21) (62) (17) (100)
2007 36 138 254 428
(9) (32) (59) (100)
1
Numbers in parentheses are percentages.
Source: Estudillo et al (2010).

12
 Table 2

Sources of household income, East Laguna Village, Philippines, 1974-2006

(Hundred PHP)1

Year Total Farm origin Nonfarm origin

1974/76 58(100)2 50(87) 8(13)
1980/83 53(100) 33(62) 20(38)
1995/96 56(100) 20(36) 36(64)
2006/07 76(100) 24(32) 52(68)
1
Deflated by CPI (1995=100).
2
Numbers in parentheses are percentages.
Source: Estudillo et al (2010).

13
 Table 3

Damages to the households caused by Milenyo, East Laguna Village, Philippines, 2006

Kind of damage Farmer Landless Nonagricultural

Per Per Per
Number cent Number cent Number cent
None (0) 10 24 63 42 108 51
Lost house (1) 0 0 0 0 0 0
House seriously damage (2) 5 12 39 26 62 30
Lost utensils (3) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Lost productive assets (4) 1 2 1 1 5 2
Lost job (5) 0 0 1 1 5 2
Income declined (6) 9 22 16 11 6 3
Lost members (7) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Members got injured or sicked (8) 0 0 0 0 0 0
Crop damage (9) 1 2 5 3 13 6
Others (10) 0 0 0 0 4 2
Combination of (2) and (4) 0 0 0 0 1 0
Combination of (2) and (5) 1 2 0 0 0 0
Combination of (2) and (6) 2 5 11 7 2 1
Combination of (2) and (9) 1 2 0 0 2 1
Combination of (4) and (6) 0 0 2 1 0 0
Combination of (6) and (9) 7 17 9 6 1 0
Combination of (2), (6) and (9) 4 10 1 1 0 0
Combination of (1), (6) and (9) 0 0 0 0 1 0
Combination of (6) and (10) 0 0 1 1 0 0
Total 41 100 149 100 210 100
Source: Sawada et al (2009, p.118).

14
 Table 4

Description of household coping mechanisms, East Laguna Village, Philippines, 2006

Coping mechanism Farmer Landless Nonagricultural

(percent) (percent) (percent)
1.Reduce food consumption 27 76 47
1.1 Rice 0 15 8
1.2 Protein 5 27 13
1.3 Food taken outside 22 34 26
2. Switch consumption to own produce 12 34 22
3. Reduce child schooling 2 1 4
4. Reduce medical expenses 0 3 3
5. Sale of valuable items 0 4 6
6. Emergency borrowing 33 50 30
6.1 Bank 5 3 2
6.2 Relatives 12 13 10
6.3 Friends 3 7 3
6.4 Neighbors 0 6 0
6.5 Moneylender 10 6 5
6.6 Pawnshop 0 0 0
6.7 Sari-sari store 3 15 10
7. Emigration 0 0 0
8. Received remittances 25 16 21
9. Aid from local government and NGO 46 65 58
10. Nonfarm employment 85 60 94
Source: Sawada et al (2009, p.120).

15