Reflections from Philippines Fieldwork | Insights and Next Steps
- Nandini Jiva
- Sep 10, 2025
- 3 min read
By Nandini Jiva
As part of ongoing research for phase II of Data on the Move, we were in the Philippines during the last week of July 2025. For our study, we are mapping how data moves between actors and institutions during disaster and climate-induced displacement. We used the following anchors in intersecting disaster-induced displacement with data infrastructures:
Understanding data flows on displacement and migration, with considerations around standards for interoperability and portability.
Examining he role of digital public infrastructure (DPI) in accelerating access to services and benefits to those impacted by natural disasters, specifically covering digital ID and payments.
Identifying how community participation contributes to this large ecosystem around aid and assistance before, during, and after a disaster event. The Philippines makes a strong case for bottom-up governance that is set within a local context, and allows us to examine the role of communities in decision-making.
With these anchors in mind, we engaged stakeholders ranging from government officials involved in implementing and tracking disaster data, to civil society and community-led organisations that are bridging information gaps between state-led channels and affected persons. We also interacted with digital banks, academicians, and humanitarian actors operating in the region.
Here are some of our key takeaways from the conversations we had:
There are established law and policy mechanisms, such as the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (NDRRM) Act, 2010, for coordination between actors during disaster response. However, these are highly focused on operational procedures and are not grounded in a rights-based lens that centre vulnerable communities.
Multiple government departments, humanitarian actors and community-led organisations are involved in data collection during disaster response. However, these databases remain siloed to a large extent, and standards to enable interoperability have not been implemented.
Government departments have various ID systems that are in place to ensure communities can access aid and assistance while they are relocated. The national ID system, PhilSys, was introduced in 2018, and is expected to encompass multiple existing ID systems into a single database. However, uptake of PhilSys remains gradual and limited to urban locations, with much to be desired in terms of what PhilSys could do for displaced communities.
Digital platforms like GCash are household names in the country, being used to digitally transfer cash to beneficiaries and families with ease. While there are concerns around digital safety and security in these platforms, there is a high degree of trust and familiarity that enables digital payment platforms to play an important role in disaster relief and aid.
With these insights, we hope to distill our research in the Philippines into the following action points to tie all these research threads together:
While there are various bodies and organisations collecting and maintaining databases on disaster-related casualties, vulnerabilities, and displacement, there needs to be greater understanding on how these clusters of data interact with each other, the nature of the data sharing agreements, and who are the actors that sit outside state systems. Mapping this information will help us understand where the gaps in standardisation lie, and how a whole-of-government approach could prevent duplication of efforts for greater transparency.
Highlighting the usage of non-traditional sources of data, which are more real-time, in addition to institutional sources of data (for instance, the census) can reinforce the rapidly-changing nature of information systems during times of crises, and how resolving immediate needs requires a mixed methods approach to data.
The Philippines presents a scenario where there is a presence of both rapid- and slow-onset climate change-driven events. While a lot of the focus is on immediate events, like cyclones, typhoons, and floods, a lot of movement within and outside the country is connected to climate events rendering livelihoods unsustainable. This goes unnoticed in policy conversations and must be addressed as a factor for migration.
Devising approaches to data governance that are rooted in multi-stakeholder collaboration can help us narrow down on how the existing good practices in the Philippines can be replicated across geographies and other disaster-prone contexts in the wake of an increase in catastrophic events that call for resilience building in preparedness and mitigation.
If you're interested in learning more about our research and thinking of ways in which we can collaborate, please reach out to us at contact@aapti.in
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