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Notes:

Pablo hit Mindanao 4 December,GDP: P2,348.2B $224.8 billionDavao region GRDP: P244.8 billion, roughly 10.4% of total GDP

Southern Mindanao lies outside of the Philippines' very wide typhoon belt. In 2011, it was hit by acategory 5 typhoon which killed approximately 1500 people. In 4th of December 2012, it was hit by asecond category 5 typhoon: current government predictions have casualties reaching 1500 once again.

On 4th of December the initial death count wildly inaccurate was 42, on the 6th of December it was322, on the 21st of December it was 1050. Much of this is to do with the pace of rescue efforts: over800 people were still missing by Christmas. Meanwhile over 2,400 families -11,680 people - arestaying in 43 overcrowded evacuation centers around the country with inadequate access to medicaltreatment, sanitation, food and water. A large proportion of these casualties come from SouthernMindanao.

Global warming will mean more typhoons in general for a population whose architecture, generalinfrastructure, and agriculture depends on relatively calm weather. Capital internationally blocks everyeffort to stop climate change, but it is the poor of the developing world who will be the first to pay theprice.

But to understand the severity of the crisis we need to see the context into which global warmingenters. The Philippine GDP was $224.8 billion in 2011, the Davao Region which was particularlybadly hit by the typhoon contributes just over 10.4% to that total. Services are the single largestcontributors to this, however mining and agriculture are important as well. Strip mining, logging andintensive agriculture have depleted the forests at the same time as they have marginalized small scalefarmers and miners. These industries not only release large amounts of greenhouse gases, contributingto global warming: by destroying the forest cover they increase the severity of floods and landslides.Over the decades, these developments have pulled some out of dire poverty, pushed others into it, and,in general, mirrored the economic inequality typical of Philippine society. Naturally, the familiesinjured by the typhoon are not seeing the wealth that they generated for the Philippines beingmarshaled for their aid; in fact national development has increased the dangers of 'natural' catastropheswithout developing a commensurate safety net. This is demonstrated by the fact that a year has passedsince the last super typhoon with almost exactly the same results.

More than this, Mindanao is the site of an extended civil war, and is therefore one of the most heavilymilitarized areas of the country, resistance fighters have declared a ceasefire in response to the typhoon,so the issue is not a lack of personnel. The fact that a single organization, the military, is tasked withboth oppression and emergency relief is more at issue. The military has acted for decades as legalmercenaries for the capitalists both domestic and international to clear communities of theBangsamoro, indigenous peoples, and peasants. The New People's Army the armed wing of thelargest Maoist organization in the country claims that the government in Manila, with the help ofAmerican troops, is using the disaster to further attack the sovereignty of the local population by

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'monopolizing' aid work with various private organizations ignoring and undermining the localnetworks.

The inclusion of private organizations here points to another issue: the long term retreat of the state inthe period of Neoliberalism. There has been a steady pattern of the state abdicating responsibility inevery imaginable sector of society from housing to disaster relief. It is therefore unable to provide a

centrally funded and coordinated response to catastrophic events and so relies on NGOs and charitableorganizations to handle the work according to whatever idiom each group deems appropriate (thegovernment is however capable of giving 'regulatory relief' to adversely affected banks). This issue isexacerbated and complicated by the government's inability to work in partnership with the localpeoples of Mindanao or to truly recognize their claims to sovereignty an inability structurallydetermined by the current needs of Philippine capitalism.

Although the Bangsamoro and indigenous peoples have made some important gains in the past year,the truth is that global warming and the various contradictions of Philippine capitalism are probablygoing to conspire to keep the poor of Mindanao and indeed the rest of the Philippines vulnerable tosimilar catastrophes for a long time to come.