Warning from the Gods: Perceptions and Coping Strategies of the Drought-Stricken Communities in A Philippine Province: A Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

Understanding people’s coping strategies in response to the 2016 drought that hit Cebu province deserves a revisit. Toward this end, this paper discusses people’s coping strategies in conjunction with their perception on this climatic event. It is argued in this paper that any intervention plans for implementation to mitigate the impact of natural disasters should be placed in the context of the people’s socio-cultural milieu. By using twenty-eight (28) transcripts of the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews from the respondents in the different municipalities in the province of Cebu, the coping strategies of communities were founded in their local knowledge founded on their perceptions of the 2016 drought. In conclusion, people’s knowledge on this specific climatic event is experiential and their coping strategies, drawn out from experience, were primarily developed to live compatibly and harmoniously with nature and secondly, to improve adaptive capacities to natural uncertainties.