7. The Haiyan Crisis: Empowering the Local, Engaging the Global

Typhoon Haiyan devastated large parts of the Philippines and posed significant threats to human security in multiple ways. This chapter illuminates both the strength and weakness of local communities through bottom-up research including focus group discussions. This study sees natural disasters as a crisis that presents threat not only to environmental security but also to other dimensions of human security. In particular, it examines Tacloban city and Palo municipality in Leyte—two hardest hit areas of devastation in the Philippine Eastern Visayas region—that demonstrated very different disaster responses. The chapter shows that local communities went through contrasting experiences in different municipalities. The chapter also sheds light on the government’s disaster preparedness.