Can the Bonding Social Capital be Used to Mitigate the Impact of Natural Hazards?: The Case of a Flood-Prone Suburban Community in the Philippines

To illustrate the influence of bonding social capital in the development initiatives of local communities and to contribute to the on-going theoretical debate on the effects of bonding social capital to communities, the cultural variable was used in the analysis using post-disaster recovery experience of a community. By using interview transcripts and conversation notes for this work, people's cultural and circumstances determined the social formation processes as responses to their circumstantial needs. The ethno-political organization (purok), the cooperative work (pintakasi) and the smooth interpersonal relationship (hugoy-hugoy) were cultural factors that explicate the strength of the bonding social capital. This article concluded that the inclusion of a cultural variable in the bonding social capital discussion is relevant and found that a flood-prone community, and those communities which are susceptible to natural hazards, relied on their social capital with greater expectations from the bonding social capital.