Law, Normative Pluralism, and Post-disaster Recovery ― Evaluating the Post-disaster Relocation and Housing Project of Typhoon Ketsana Victims in the Philippines

This book looks at how the multiplicity of formal and informal normative systems that actualize the post-disaster recovery goals of the country’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 has resulted in the inadequate housing and relocation of Typhoon Ketsana victims in the Philippines. Using the sociological and normative pluralist perspectives and the case study method, it evaluates the level of conformity of the components of the housing project according to international conventions and legal standards. It highlights the negative unintended consequences caused by the complex normative regimes of various competing stakeholders, rigid real estate regulation, and the unscrupulous involvement of powerful and ‘corrupt’ real estate developers and housing groups as largely contributing to the project’s deviation from the law’s proactive objectives. This book attempts to promote the socio-legal perspectives which have long been overlooked in disaster research. Finally, it invites policymakers to enact a comprehensive disaster law and create a one-stop disaster management agency to improve the long-term rehabilitation of disaster victims in developing countries such as the Philippines.

Dr. Vivencio (Ven) O. Ballano is Associate Professor V of the Sociology Department of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Manila. In 2011, he obtained his doctoral degree in Sociology from the Ateneo de Manila University. He was chosen Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Southeast Asian Studies Research Exchange Program (SEASREP). He is the author of the book Sociological Perspectives on Media Piracy in the Philippines and Vietnam published by Springer Singapore in 2016. Dr. Ballano’s specialized areas of teaching and research include sociology of law, religion, disaster management, corporate organization, and the Catholic Social Teaching. His current projects and interests include writing monographs and articles on rumors and gossip in corporate settings and the Catholic Social Teaching, as well as doing sociological research on film piracy and illegal camcording in the Philippines.