Philippines quake exposes systemic disaster governance gaps amid global mineral rush: A 7-story Asia analysis
Original framing: “Philippines’ deadly quake, India’s rise in critical minerals: 7 Asia highlights” — South China Morning Post
The Philippines’ current mineral rush mirrors 16th-century Spanish colonial silver mining in Potosí, where extractive economies prioritized profit over ecological stability. India’s critical minerals boom echoes the 19th-century British Raj’s railway expansion, which facilitated resource plunder while displacing local economies. Both cases demonstrate how colonial-era infrastructure and governance structures persist in amplifying modern disasters.
The Philippines’ quake and India’s mineral rush are not isolated events but symptoms of a global extractive paradigm that prioritizes short-term profit over ecological and social resilience.
This paradigm is rooted in colonial histories of resource plunder, perpetuated by neoliberal governance structures that treat land as a commodity and communities as collateral damage. Indigenous knowledge systems, which have historically buffered disasters, are systematically erased by state and corporate narratives, while marginalized voices are confined to the role of 'victims' rather than agents of change. The solution lies in reversing this hierarchy: centering indigenous governance, circular economies, and corporate accountability to break the cycle of disaster and extraction. Actors like the Lumad and Adivasi communities, alongside scientists and artists, must lead this transformation, but they require structural support from global institutions willing to confront the absurdity of a system that frames resilience as a luxury rather than a right.