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Road transport has been one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions. In the Philippines, one such measure is the introduction of a relatively new public transport mode called the “Premium Point-to-Point (P2P) Bus Service”, which features shorter travel time and lower emission intensity than conventional buses. In light of the significant deficiency in transport emission studies for Philippine cities, this paper presents a scenario-based method for quantifying the potential emission reduction benefits of the P2P bus in Metropolitan Manila. Based on a pro rata mode shift assumption, it is estimated that a 1% mode shift of passengers from existing motor modes to P2P buses would lead to 0.64% reduction of total emissions over selected travel routes in Metro Manila. The analytical method addresses the acute emission data scarcity in the Philippines, and provides early evidence on the aggregate environmental benefits of P2P buses. Extensive sensitivity tests are conducted to verify the simulation results and identify key determinants of emission reduction. The tests confirm the robustness of research findings and further uncover the great potential of increasing vehicle occupancy levels to mitigate vehicle emissions in Metro Manila. Policy implications for enhancing the environmental benefits of P2P buses are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorsogon City is a rapidly urbanising coastal area in the Philippines. Its location, combined with a rapidly changing and growing urban fabric, leaves it vulnerable to both incremental climate change and associated extreme weather events. In this paper, UN-HABITAT data are used to draw out the climate change vulnerabilities and policy responses in Sorsogon City. Vulnerability “hotspots” highlight the spatial intersection of socio-economic justice concerns, particularly in terms of vulnerability to increased cyclone activity. We discuss vulnerabilities of Sorsogon City and its citizens to climate change and measures undertaken through various social, environmental and technical systems and interventions to increase resilience. The paper also attempts to unpick the relationship between the neat, concise reported city and the complexities of urban life using the Sorsogon experiment to consider the limitations of such approaches to governing climate change. We group these under four headings: social simplification in the absence of data; over-governance (and under-representation); quick wins versus strategic investment; and stretching the ecological and vulnerability footprints of the city. The experience of Sorsogon City is then extended to reflect on issues of governance and planning in other Asian coastal cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite growing attention to identity and intersectionality in the field of development, there is still a dearth of empirical scholarship exploring the ways that being sexually non-normative—or queer—shapes the experience of living in poverty in the Global South. In this paper, I use the ‘missing dimensions of poverty’ framework developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative to explore the ways that queerness and poverty inflect each other in the urban Philippines. I examine the pivotal role that queer people play in household and neighborhood economies, and argue that being queer profoundly affects the ways that low-income Filipinos experience poverty. I suggest that a better understanding of the capabilities that low-income queer individuals are allowed or encouraged to exercise—and the roles that are denied to them—can be used to beneficially integrate those populations into development praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the knowledge, perceptions, and compliance of fisheries stakeholders with the seasonal fishery closure implemented in the Visayan Sea, Philippines. We interviewed 235 municipal fisheries stakeholders composed of municipal fishers, fish dryers, fish traders/fish brokers (regulated group) and local government units, Philippine National Police-Maritime Group/Philippine Coast Guard, and fish wardens (regulator group) in 12 coastal towns surrounding the Visayan Sea. Data from interviews were complemented by focus group discussions. Overall, municipal fisheries stakeholders have a fair knowledge about the SFC. The regulated group in the municipalities within Panay Island are more knowledgeable about the SFC compared to their counterparts in other areas. There is a positive correlation between the regulated group's knowledge and perceptions about, and compliance, with the SFC. The lack of alternative livelihoods, uneven implementation of the SFC and poverty also influence compliance. Given our findings, addressing these factors is crucial to effective fisheries management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I contrast two moments of shock to open Christianity in the Philippines to a spatial analysis. I begin by framing the Spanish colonial period and the Christianisation of the Philippines as a spatial shock. The Philippines was spatially transformed through colonial projects such as urbanism, intensive agriculture and resource extraction that, taken together, can be understood in the first instance as processes of unmapping, where environments once alive and animated by meaningful relations between peoples and places were reconfigured as empty, and in the second instance as the instantiation of a new sensorium with profound consequences for how Filipinos would, thereafter, experience the world. I dwell initially on Spanish urban practices and the optical power of the planned town as the emplacement of a Christo-disciplinary sensorium that rendered local populations legible and visible to colonial power, generating new types, compositions and combinations of subjects and establishing new points of coordination for Filipino bodies and minds. I then move ‘forward’ in time to consider a second and rather more contemporary spatial shock. Here, the organising logic of the Christo-disciplinary sensorium is under threat as a new urban morphology and a new mobile religiosity mark the emergence of a new, neoliberal sensorium. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The common assertion that the major residential divisions in South-cast Asian cities, as a class, are along ethnic lines is not appropriate for Philippine provincial cities. The various Christian language groups amalgamate without serious difficulty, and Muslims and Chinese, though ethnically distinct, are in most cases too few (and Chinese are too intermixed) to determine the basic residential lineaments of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the special investigation carried out by the Mindanao Center for Population Studies in 1973 to determine the extent of purposive concealment of death in household surveys conducted by the MCPS have been presented. The evidence was collected through the use of the randomized response technique. The results indicated that purposive concealment of deaths is extensively practised in both urban and rural areas of the MCPS study population. It was estimated that 50 per cent or more of deaths were not revealed to the interviewers. Crude death rates adjusted for concealment were computed for both urban and rural areas of the MCPS population by adding estimated concealed deaths to those actually reported to interviewers. The adjusted rates were 115 and 134 per 1,000 for urban and rural areas, respectively, An effort was made to determine whether these rates were unreasonably high by studying stable populations and model life tables applicable to the Philippine setting. Although no definite conclusions were reached on this question, there is reason to believe that the adjusted death rates are close to the true mortality situation in the area under study. Randomized response data further indicate that approximately 75 per cent of urban deaths and 47 per cent of rural deaths in the MCI'S study population were not registered with municipal authority The authors postulate that a major reason for purposive concealment of death in household surveys is failure to register deaths with municipal authorities and fear of legal involvement if this fact became generally known outside the immediate neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cebu has long been one of the most heavily populated Philippine islands. Prior to 1900 the population growth rate on Cebu was higher than that of the whole Philippines because of a relative absence of malaria and the presence of a good harbor at Cebu City. The island experienced its most rapid population growth as an agricultural area during the nineteenth century. Since Cebu has become relatively so heavily populated, the major factors which affected population patterns there during several periods prior to 1900 were probably somewhat different from those effective on other islands during the same periods. Between 1500 and 1800, the dominant factor affecting population growth and distribution patterns was accessibility to the major trade and administrative center on the island. Thereafter, as population pressures on the land became rather great, land quality became the most significant factor. Other factors were probably minor ha importance by comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]