Talustusan, a community once known for its abundant water resources, found itself scrambling for water during the 2024 El Niño. While residents managed a temporary fix in 2025, local officials acknowledge it is not sustainable. With rising demand and the climate crisis, the community understands the need for a long-term solution. This photo essay highlights how Talustusan is innovating amidst the crisis but also emphasizes the need for support rooted in informed policies rather than patronage politics.
Some seven kilometers (four miles) from the capital town Naval of Biliran Island in Central Philippines is a village called Talustusan. Home to over 600 households, Talustusan is an agricultural area, surrounded by water springs. Most families here farm rice and coconut. Biliran-native historian Rolando Borinaga in a blog post wrote that Talustusan appears to be a source of timber during the galleon-making years, from 1580s to early 1600s. This is also where its official name derived from: Talostosan. Defined in a Spanish dictionary as, “rope, a thick and long rattan, etc., that is tied to a heavy object to slacken it or lower it from a high spot and slope; the same place where the object is taken down or lowered”
I am also from this village. I spent my formative years here and had the privilege to enjoy its nature’s bounty. The rice fields served as my playground growing up. I learned how to swim in the river nearby. Residents fetch drinking water and do their laundry in water springs. However, typhoons are also a regular part of our lives. Of the 20 tropical storms that visit the Philippines yearly, almost half pass through this part of the country.
On my regular visits to my hometown, I’ve started noticing the gradual changes. As the rough, muddy roads turned into concrete, residential houses also started to surface in the rice fields. Along with the increasing population comes a higher demand for public utilities, including access to water. One could say this is not a problem for the resource-rich community. However, increased demands coupled with old water system infrastructure, and intensifying impacts of the climate crisis has put Talustusan in a challenging situation.
In 2024, Southeast Asia experienced the hottest of summers on record – one that resulted in school closures and concerns about heat-related illnesses. During the extreme heat in March to May 2024, many residents in rural and agricultural communities in the Philippines struggled with drought, exacerbated by El Niño.
Residents of Talustusan, found themselves queuing between 11pm to 2am, and 4am to 7am, to collect water for household consumption the next day. For many, the irony of their ordeal was all too clear: water sources were all around their hometown, but they didn't have potable water.
The community found a solution to this ordeal and eventually managed to mitigate the impending water shortage in the summer of 2025. Community officials, however, are aware that a sustainable system is needed to address the increasing demand for water and impacts of the climate crisis.
Despite the bounty of water resources, like many other communities in the Philippines, Talustusan lacks the financial resources to develop a sustainable system of their own. Apart from limited budgets from the provincial government, they are under the mercy of ruling local politicians who get to determine who and what gets prioritized.
The photos below illustrate some of the changes in my hometown over the course of time.
The photo above on the left shows water meters for five households that managed to tap into the Naval Water District’s pipeline. While NWD allows residents to use their service, only a few locals are able to afford the cost. The above right photo shows the massive pipeline (blue) installed by NWD, while the small black water pipes supply households in Talustusan. (Photo taken May 2024)
Concluding thought
Over the years, I have observed the construction and widening of roads not only in my community but across the province. While roads are essential for improving accessibility and living conditions, infrastructure development often does not align with the community’s actual needs, such as sustainable water systems. Although communities find their own solutions, they require financial support to implement them—support that should come from informed policy programs rather than patronage politics.
As of the time of publishing this piece, the central and southern Philippines are suffering from the devastation left by Typhoon Kalmaegi (local name Tino), which has claimed over 200 lives. This is the 20th typhoon to hit the country this year. For many communities in the Philippines, such disasters are becoming more frequent and even more intense. As one friend, whose house was submerged in floodwaters due to Typhoon Kalmaegi, shared, “It is heartbreaking to see your dream house, built over years, gone in an instant.”
This comes at a time when flood control and other climate mitigation and adaptation measures in the Philippines are marred by corruption cases, including allegations involving government officials from Biliran. Meanwhile, in the international climate crisis discourse, climate finance has increasingly shifted into a profit-driven model, which could place vulnerable communities at even greater disadvantage.
