Every September, the Philippines observes National Disaster Preparedness Month, a timely reminder that for 16 years in a row we have ranked among the world’s most disaster-vulnerable nations. But preparedness is not only about drills or relief goods; it is also about the internally displaced persons (IDPs) who remain uprooted by typhoons, earthquakes, floods or armed conflict. Each calamity leaves not just destruction but also families scattered, communities unsettled, and lives put on hold for years. Unlike refugees who cross borders, IDPs often remain invisible within their own country, struggling with uncertain housing, fragile livelihoods and limited access to basic services. To link disaster readiness with their rights is to insist that resilience must mean more than mere survival.
Republic Act (RA) 10121, or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act of 2010, was supposed to be the answer: a comprehensive law that promoted community-based disaster management, set up funding mechanisms and aligned us with international standards.
I have reviewed RA 10121 and it mentions “internally-displaced” only once, and it pertains to nursing mothers. As Bermudez, Temprosa and Benson note (n.d.), RA 10121 is “principally about structures rather than rights and standards, about response actors rather than displaced people.” In other words, the law built systems but forgot the individuals most at risk.
The United Nations defines IDPs as people forced to leave their homes due to armed conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations, or disasters, but who remain within their country’s borders. In the Philippines, that’s not a small group. In 2022, around 700,000 people live in displacement, whether because of conflict in Mindanao, natural hazards, or human-induced disasters. The Marawi siege of 2017 drove some 360,000 residents from their homes. Last year, the Commission on Human Rights placed the figure at 80,300 internally displaced individuals. RA 10121 offers them no rights-based protection.
Why the silence? The law was designed broadly, to reduce disaster risks for everyone, not target specific groups. That meant IDPs’ needs, already a reality long before 2010, were pushed aside. Add to that the lack of evacuation centers, limited funding for local governments and the complexity of displacement’s social, economic and psychological dimensions, and you get a framework too thin to cover the ground.
To be fair, RA 10121 was a step up from its predecessor, Presidential Decree 1566 of 1978, which had become outdated. It introduced incremental reforms and brought in pluralist policymaking, with multiple stakeholders shaping the law. But incrementalism can only go so far when lives are at stake.
Advocacy groups have since pushed for stronger protections. Senate Bill 594 and House Bill 8269, both dubbed the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Act, seek to guarantee access to goods and services, and to hold those responsible for displacement accountable. The House passed in third and final reading in 2023, but the measure is still awaiting deliberation in the Senate. (Note: BTA Bill No. 32 / Rights of Internally Displaced Persons of the BARMM Act of 2024, was unanimously approved on its third reading by the BARMM Parliament in September 2024. This is an IDP Framework specific to BARMM.)
What’s clear is that patchwork solutions are not enough. The Marawi recovery effort, led by Task Force Bangon Marawi, showed what happens when decisions are made top-down: displaced residents were excluded from planning, leading to mistrust and uneven recovery. As Roberts and Pelling (2020) argue, transformative processes, those that extend rights to the marginalized and prioritize bottom-up approaches (Bermudez, et al.) are needed to tackle vulnerability at its roots.
The roadblocks are many: political changes that delay reviews, weak local capacities, underfunded disaster offices and fragmented data systems. In poorer municipalities, the mandated five percent disaster fund yields little, leaving them unable to prepare adequately. And when communities see DRRM as a future-oriented investment rather than an urgent need, it often falls behind health, food or education in the list of local priorities (Silver, 2014, Senate Planning Economic Office, 2017).
Still, the gap is too big to ignore. Disasters will keep coming, and displacement will remain an ugly reality. Strengthening RA 10121 to explicitly protect IDPs is not about adding another layer of bureaucracy. It is about ensuring that when homes are lost and lives uprooted, people have the right not just to survive but to rebuild with dignity.
For a country as disaster-prone as ours, resilience is not measured only in stronger buildings or faster response times. It is measured in whether the most vulnerable, those living in tents, bunkhouses or borrowed homes are given the protection they deserve.
True resilience is measured not just by how quickly we respond to disasters, but by how effectively we protect and empower those most affected. For the Philippines, this means recognizing the rights and needs of IDPs, ensuring they have safe homes, secure livelihoods, and a voice in recovery and planning. As we observe National Disaster Preparedness Month, let it serve as a call to action: building a safer nation is inseparable from safeguarding the dignity and future of every displaced Filipino.