It will be a month this Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, since typhoon Tino’s floods swept through parts of Cebu. Wounds may have turned to scars and mud cleared from homes and streets, but for many victims, financial recovery has barely begun. The reality is that Cebuanos carry the economic burden of disasters, while the systems that failed them face no real consequence.
For many households, the expenses are overwhelming. Floodwaters destroyed appliances, furniture, clothes and documents. Medical expenses for wounds, anti-leptospirosis medicine, anti-tetanus shots and respiratory conditions continue to add to the costs. Those whose homes remain unlivable now face the unexpected cost of renting temporary shelter not factored in family budgets. Renting a one-room apartment for P10,000 a month or a house for P20,000 or more. Others move in with relatives, adding to everyone’s expenses. And this is not a one-week situation for many. There will be those displaced for two to six months while they clear out homes, repair damaged parts, or renovate to cope with future floods.
Many victims had no car or house insurance against floods and will have to undertake repairs or reconstructions entirely at their own expense. Such expenses were never part of their financial planning.
Then there are the costs of replacing damaged or lost passports and identification cards, requesting new passbooks and checks, buying new devices essential to one’s work. A new mobile phone or laptop is needed to replace what was lost or destroyed, but the real ordeal is in recovering directories, documents and generations’ worth of family pictures.
On top of that is the income loss. Thousands of employees missed work for days. Some used up their leave credits, others were not paid. Small business owners lost inventory and equipment. Freelancers and on-demand independent contractors felt the sharp pain of lost opportunities. A disaster wipes out both houses and the ability to earn.
Savings that took years to build disappear in days and retirement nest eggs are used prematurely because no one planned for catastrophic property loss. Loans and credit card bills still have to be paid on time. With emergency purchases post-typhoon, credit card usage is expected to rise.
These are the real economic consequences of disaster in Cebu and it is the private individual who pays the price of systemic failure caused by neglect, incompetence and greed. Subdivisions were approved on land that should never have been built on. Land conversions ignored the early warnings of experts and planners. Drainage systems were not improved even as the population doubled. Developers cut corners. Government spent billions of pesos on flood control projects, yet some turned out to be inadequate and not functional.
In the end, the bill for every disaster arrives not at the Capitol or City Hall or the offices of developers and contractors. It goes to the families trying to rebuild. If Cebu truly wants resilience, then responsibility must shift away from the victims and toward the systems and decision-makers who allowed the risks to grow.