The ‘Growth’ That Drowned a City

We all saw the images from Metro Cebu. The heartbreaking photos of families on rooftops in Talisay, Consolacion, and Liloan, waiting for rescue as the floodwaters rose; cars piled up on each other in Cebu City as rushing floodwater upended everything in its path.

Our hearts go out to them. And yet, as we watch, we are filled with a sickening sense of déjà vu. We have seen this before. We will, tragically, see it again.

Let’s be blunt: The typhoon was the hazard, but we manufactured the vulnerability. This is a disaster we built ourselves, and it’s a chilling preview for every other city in the country repeating the same mistakes.

For 15 years, Metro Cebu has been a poster child for “unfettered growth.” New residential communities, new commercial centers, new opportunities. We celebrate this. We all want progress. But the article that analyzed the tragedy asks the central question: “WHAT PRICE, GROWTH?”

We now see the bill. The price is paid by the very people that “growth” was supposed to serve.

This is the great fallacy we have bought into. We confuse the speed of development with the quality of it. We see cranes on the skyline as a sign of progress, without asking what those cranes are building, and, more importantly, where they are building.

The provided analysis is blunt. The new, inundated residential areas were “built on areas which appear to have been historical water basins.” The rivers and natural drainage systems, which are vital public infrastructure, “are not recognized for their important function/s.”

This is not a uniquely Cebuano problem. This is a Philippine-wide addiction to reckless development. The Philippines is one of the fastest-urbanizing countries in East Asia, with the World Bank noting our urban population growing at over 2% annually.¹ We are in a frantic race to build.

In this race, we are ignoring the warnings. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) provides detailed geohazard maps to every local government unit, clearly delineating areas at high risk for floods and landslides.² Yet, look at the boomtowns—from Iloilo to Davao, from the outskirts of Manila to the corridors of Central Luzon. We see the same pattern: permits are approved for sprawling subdivisions in floodplains and on unstable hillsides.

We’ve bought into a dangerous fantasy. We call it “growth,” but it’s just exposure. Real progress doesn’t just raise skylines; it raises foundations. If our development makes our communities more vulnerable, it is, by definition, a failure.

Dr. Renato Solidum Jr. has long taught us a simple, powerful formula: Disaster = Hazard x Vulnerability.

Typhoon Tino was the hazard. We cannot stop the storms. But the vulnerability? That was our choice. Building homes where water has always gone is a choice. Denuding mountains and quarrying slopes—which the article rightly blames—is a choice.

When we allow “growth for growth’s sake,” we are not building communities; we are building future disasters. We are borrowing prosperity from the future, and the bill has just come due in Cebu.

We cannot just praise Cebuano “resilience” and move on. Resilience is what you need when systems have failed you. Our systems are failing. We must demand that our leaders and planners stop ignoring the maps. We must redefine “progress” not by the number of new malls, but by the number of homes that don’t flood.

Cebu’s tragedy is a warning. We must ask ourselves if our own cities are heeding it, or if we are just waiting for our own rooftops to be submerged.