In the Philippines, an Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plans (ADSDPP) is a fundamental expression of ownership rights of the Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs) over their ancestral domain. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is the primary government agency responsible for the effective development planning process for all ICCs?IPs. This study inquires how an ADSDPP could be sustainable as a protection plan when a CADT on which it is anchored on is infirm. Semi-structured individual interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted to elicit the history of ancestral domain claim, and to gather information on the experiences, observations and comments of community members. A number of official documents from the Office of the Executive Secretary (OES,NCIP,DENR among others, were obtained. The data collected contributed in identifying policy influences that helped shape the nature and character of NCIP and how this has affected the implementation of the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act in terms of ancestral domain titling and formulation of the ADSDPPs.The study applied Rajesh Tandon's concept where he stated that realities on the ground do not necessarily match with the categorization that government represents the primacy of being the ""first"" sector, the corporations or business as the ""second'' sector and civil society as the "third" sector. The ""first'' sector purpose to determine the manner in which families, institutions, associations and communities are to be managed. This study ascertained that indigenous peoples possess the readiness and are astute when engaging government and civil society pertaining to laws on indigenous peoples' rights to ancestral land domain. This readiness to meet situations is shaped by and, the outcome of Indigenous Peoples' history of land dispossession and marginalization. It is from such historical context that Happy Hallow's traditional Ibaloi leaders read these laws unabashedly and participation in workshops formed key inputs in the formulation of the government's Special Orders on ancestral land and domain claims. These Special Orders in turn formed important provisions in the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Ironically, the IPRA law as implemented in the area where it all began, became a tool for unscrupulous survey proceedings resulting in the distortion of ancestral land and domain. The study recommends institutional reorganization of the NCIP, an amendment of the Happy Hallow CADT in order to reflect the community's traditional boundaries, metes and bounds and the reformulation of the ADSPP with the full participation of community members. It proposes mapping and resource inventory of the Happy Hallow ancestral domain to ensure that natural resource use and management are bounded by people's needs and aspirations. It utilizes planning as a community event. As such, planning serves as a venue and as a process whereby the community's general physical development will be interwoven with the social, political, cultural and bio-physical concerns of the people.

"This study aimed to make an assessment on the perceived sustainability of Angeles City's heritage tourism development using stakeholder analysis. It identified the stakeholder roles and prevailing relationships among stakeholder groups and used this analysis in assessing the current state of economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability of the local heritage tourism industry. It employed a qualitative research methodology, in which the primary data gathered comprised of in-depth interviews with key informants belonging to the public sector, private sector, non-government organizations (NGOs) and local community sector, as well as non-participant observation in the study site. Content analysis was the main analytical used in processing and interpreting data. The study found that stakeholders view the public sector as the group that drives the overall direction of heritage tourism development of Angeles City. The private sector contribution, it was found, was limited to their expected cooperative role relating to government-imposed policies and regulations on the design and structure of business establishments inside the heritage zone. The NGO sector was found to play the important role of being in the forefront of advancing heritage preservation efforts, while the local community sector role was centered on being the supporters and sustainers of heritage tourism development. On existing stakeholders dynamic, the study found the public sector to be the dominant player among stakeholder relationships as they hold the mandate for heritage tourism development and control much of the resources that advance this advocacy. Generally speaking, the presence of cooperation networks comprising various stakeholders is sound in that the players are able to work on their organizational and outlook similarities so they are able to generally maintain amicable social relations, interactions and flows of communication. In the sustainability assessment based on the stakeholder analysis, it was found that Angeles City is currently managing a heritage tourism based on stakeholder analysis, it was found that Angeles City is currently managing a heritage tourism industry that is perceived to be economically and environmentally unsustainable, but socio-culturally sustainable. At the moment, the tourism trade inside the heritage zone is not significant enough to positively impact the local economy, and the same area is threatened by rapid land use conversion in favor of commercial establishments. Despite these undesirable impacts, the city appears to maintain the socio-cultural sustainability of its heritage tourism development as its stakeholders participate in actively built and intangible cultural tourism product development, cultivate a deeper sense of pride in belonging to their place and a growing sentiment to strengthen the heritage tourism brand of the city. The study posits that given the perceived sustainable socio-cultural character of Angeles City's heritage tourism development, overall sustainability is still attainable as economic and environmental interventions are easier to employ to effect immediate impacts than would be the case if an area is dealing with poor socio-cultural sustainability.

In November of 2013, the Super Typhoon Yolanda (International name Haiyan) hit the Philippines with unprecedented strength. It produced a storm surge that caused massive damage and a high number of casualties in a number of coastal areas. Due to its proximity to the Pacific to the Pacific Ocean, Tacloban City in Leyte Province bore the highest figures for both damages and casualty. As a response, the Local Government, in partnership with UN Habitat, drafted the Tacloban City Recovery and Rehabilitation Plan (TRRP) in March, 2014. This document, together with rehabilitation plans from other affected LGUs were consolidated in the Comprehensive Recovery and Rehabilitation Plans by the National Government. This study aims to identify the challenges in replicating internationally practiced coastal adaptation measures to the Philippines as proposed in the recovery plans for Tacloban City. The Climate Change adaptation approaches in the physical infrastructure and environmental sector are assessed by the two influential factors, there are its suitability and social acceptability, Findings show that the suitability of the five proposed projects varies in terms of their advantages and disadvantages, degree and expected length of effectivity, the physical conditions of the site, and the capacity to be implemented by the responsible agency. Social Acceptability for each project varies in the levels of governance such as the national, local and the barangay communities, and institutional arrangements among the implementing agencies. Perception survey shows that significant variables for the social acceptability of the coastal communities are the barangay of origin, zone, livelihood and lot ownership type, and household size. Recommendations for selecting suitable measures include undergoing a site assessment, evaluation of the capacity to address potential impacts, timing and length of effectivity, availability of resources and technology, and employing models and prioritization methods. For replicating them, it is recommended to assign the institutional responsibilities according to the capacity of the implementing agency and consider using complementary adaptation measures. To raise the social acceptability among the affected communities, a perception survey should be conducted to identify their needs, information gaps and preferred planning participation. This way, implementing agencies would be guided on how to properly address these concerns.

Natural disaster events are frequently occurring and causing heavy damages not only to lives and properties. One study conducted in 2004 is still the basis for the major earthquake preparation for Metro manila; this is the Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS). The Study focused on Model 08, as the worst-case scenario, this is when a 7.2 Magnitude earthquake occurred along the west valley fault. The Study projected based on the given scenario that 170,000 residential houses will collapse, 340,000 residential houses will be partly damaged, 34,00 persons will die, 114,000 persons will be injured. Fire will break out and burnt approximately 1,710 hectares and totally 18,000 additional persons will be killed by this secondary disaster. Moreover, infrastructures and lifelines will also be heavily damaged.A segment of West Valley Fault (WVF) traverses the eastern part of Makati City, which affects six barangays namely: West Rembo, East Rembo, Comembo, Pembo, Rizal and Post Proper Southside. Based on the Contingency Plan of Makati for Earthquake, when the worst scenario occurred during daytime, there would be an estimated 4.2 million people in the City, at 2,300 deaths (0.5 percent of the total population) and 84,822 injured (1.6 percent). There will be displacement of 1,260,000 persons (30 percent of daytime population), there will be 9,092 structures that are heavily damaged, 16,694 partially damaged, and 4,983 burned down. Since the study investigated the earthquake vulnerability, there are 323 lots and 311 structures located in an area of 58,381.96sq. meters using the 10-meter buffer zone. Only 155 households were investigated after preliminary assessing the data gathered. This study attempted to assess the level of vulnerability of the households living within the buffer zone of the West Valley Fault of the Eastside Cluster in Makati. Only East Rembo, Comembo, Pembo, Rizal are considered in the Study since they formed part of the Eastside Cluster. The Study developed a tool to evaluate the level of vulnerability for Makati City in relation to four contributing factors namely: geologic, structural, economic and social. The tool treats the four factors that are calculated based on the general framework of risk employed by UNDP Risk = hazard x exposure x vulnerability. Appropriate fractile classifications under an assumed beta probability distribution, which is generally skewed and takes values within the interval (0, 1) were applied to measure the level of vulnerability for each factors and to the overall vulnerability level.Based on the calculation and analyses done., Geologic Vulnerability is consistently high in all four barangays compared with the three other factors and it greatly influenced the assessed level of the overall vulnerability. For Structural Vulnerability, the roofing materials caused the vulnerability to be low, for economic it is evident that risk transfer and financial support mechanism explains the vulnerability condition of the Study Area, while for social-programs and projects through increased budgetary allocation to disaster risk reduction and management activities, earthquake awareness and the presence of vulnerable segments such as children and senior citizens. Integrating the factors to generate the Overall Vulnerability Index, most of the households or 59 percent are level High while 40 percent are in the moderate or medium level of vulnerability. In terms of the number of households in the high level considering the location, there are 45 households from Rizal and 33 households from East Rembo, making the two barangays as a primary area for possible interventions to reduce vulnerability and increase resiliency. Investigating at the household level, among the top 20 most vulnerable households, 16 are located in Rizal while two are from Pembo, one from Comembo and one from East Rembo. Although the top 5 most vulnerable households are all located in barangay Rizal.The Study was able to pinpoint specific houses with the level of vulnerability based on four factors. Recommendations, measures and interventions were also forwarded by the Study to reduce vulnerabilities of the community and the households based on the elements presented by the Study.

Land market values of residential lots in subdivisions are expected to vary across lots of different physical characteristics and to steadily increase over time as the surrounding environment and socio-economic conditions change. Zonal and assessed value of land are expected to be periodically adjusted to reflect change in market values. Using the case of residential lots in a subdivisions Marikina City, this study examined (1) the relationship between physical characteristics and lot price at first sale, (2) how disaster risk factors and changes in socio-economic and other factors relate to the pattern of change in lot prices over time, and (3) how adjustments in zonal and assessed values compared to actual changes in lot prices overtime. The study found only the distance of the lot to the subdivision ingress and egress (gate) to be significantly correlated to lot price. The general lack of significant relationship between lot price and the other lot characteristics (i.e., siting, shape, size, frontage, elevation)is attributed to the fact that the land prices data used in the analysis were no longer the suggested or standard price set by the developer but rather were ""arms-length transaction"" prices. . The study findings also point to the presence in the immediate surroundings of Cinco Hermanos Subdivision of among others, business establishment and services, CBDs, schools, churches, recreations, amenities, institutional agencies, hospitals, and the availability of transportation infrastructures such as roads, bridges, and railways, and even of other residential subdivisions, to be contributory factors to the steady upward movement of land price per square meter. Similar upward movement in unit price was observed even in lots where geo-hazards like earthquake fault and flooding were present. The study also found assessed and zonal values to be about 50% of the prevailing land market values using average actual sale prices of lots in Cinco Hermanos as reference. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings' implications for local development planning and these include among others some recommendations as follows: (1) Direct regulation of the residential use of lands with geo-hazards, (2)Strengthening of disaster risk reduction measures in such areas including information dissemination,(3) Strengthening of cadastral information system, and (4) Policy about land appraisal and disclosures of geo-hazards.