URBAN RISK AND GOVERNANCE ADVISORY

On the Implementation of the Cebu City CLUP 2023–2032

To: Hon. Nestor B. Archival
City Mayor, Cebu City

Hon. Tomas R. Osmeña
City Vice Mayor, Cebu City / Presiding Officer, Sangguniang Panlungsod

Hon. Harold Kendrick Go
City Councilor, Cebu City / Chairman, Committee on Urban Planning

The Honorable Members
Sangguniang Panlungsod, Cebu City

With due notice to:

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

Urban and Environmental Planning Stakeholders

And the Concerned Public

Subject: Implementation Risks, Public Safety Imperatives, and Need for Supplemental Disaster-Responsive Safeguards in Cebu City CLUP 2023–2032
Date: November 10, 2025

I. Purpose of this Advisory

This advisory provides a legal, policy, and risk-governance assessment of the Cebu City Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) 2023–2032 with emphasis on implementation-stage vulnerabilities, specifically:

flood risk amplification,
upland hazard exposure,
housing displacement pressures,
watershed integrity, and
disaster governance obligations under Philippine law.

This advisory does not seek reversal of the CLUP, but underscores mandatory corrective implementation measures to safeguard public safety, ecological stability, and urban resilience.

II. Key Factual Findings from the Approved CLUP

Expansion of Commercial Land and Price-Induced Displacement

The more than twofold increase in commercial land allocation (from 983 hectares to 2,038 hectares) reflects a pronounced shift toward market-driven spatial development. While commercial intensification contributes to local revenue generation, evidence from urban land economics confirms that rapid expansion of commercial zoning creates upward pressure on land values, accelerates speculative landholding, and displaces low- and middle-income households. Absent compensatory housing supply or protective land tenure mechanisms, this dynamic systematically pushes vulnerable populations toward lower-cost but high-risk locations, including upland peripheries, unstable slopes, and flood-prone zones.The CLUP effectively externalizes social costs by normalizing informal settlement in humanitarian liability zones.

Significant Reduction in Agricultural Land and Loss of Hydrological Buffering

The 72.6% reduction in agricultural land area (from 13,322 hectares to 3,653 hectares) substantially diminishes the city’s natural capacity for rainfall infiltration, stormwater detention, and peak-runoff modulation. Agricultural soils play a material role in maintaining sub-surface absorption, groundwater recharge, and runoff latency. Their large-scale conversion increases surface flow velocity, flood peak intensity, and downstream inundation risks, transferring ecological load to drainage infrastructure that was neither designed nor upgraded to absorb this displaced hydrological capacity.

Nominal vs. Operational Forest Protection

The administrative reclassification of land from “forest” to “protected area” (NIPAS designation) does not equate to retained forest function. The legal status confers juridical protection but fails to guarantee the necessary biophysical safeguards—such as canopy density, root-network stability, interception storage, and slope stabilization—which are essential for hydrological defense. Protection, when interpreted solely as tenure classification without measurable ecological performance metrics, risks institutionalizing paper protection rather than operational conservation.

Contraction of Residential Areas and Insufficient Provision for Socialized Housing

Residential land allocation declined concurrently with minimal provision for socialized housing, presently measured at only 1.06% of the total land use plan. This proportion falls significantly below national housing equity and spatial justice policy expectations under RA 7279 (Urban Development and Housing Act). The imbalance signals a land access asymmetry wherein land is increasingly optimized for capital formation rather than human settlement security, normalizing informal relocation to risk-exposed margins and expanding humanitarian liabilities for the local government.

Absence of Enforceable Geotechnical and Hydrological Safeguards in Zoning Governance
The current land use framework lacks mandatory policy instruments governing:
Geotechnical clearance requirements prior to land conversion or permitting.
Mandatory stormwater retention and detention system standards.
Slope utilization thresholds and grading limits.
Runoff coefficient controls for upland and transitional zones.
Carrying-capacity caps based on geomorphological and hydrological constraints.

The absence of these safeguards permits developmental approval without ensuring compliance with safety standards aligned with PD 1096 (National Building Code), PD 1586 (EIS System), and RA 10121 (Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act).

Extreme Weather Events Have Revealed Gaps in Risk Calibration

Recent hydrological stress tests—specifically rainfall-induced events such as Typhoon Tino—demonstrated material discrepancies between modeled assumptions and observed watershed behavior. Documented impacts include uncharted runoff corridors, premature drainage system exceedance, accelerated upland discharge rates, and slope saturation indicators. These signals evidence insufficient climate risk integration and reveal that CLUP approval parameters did not fully account for intensifying hydro-meteorological variability, contrary to the anticipatory planning mandates of RA 9729 (Climate Change Act) and RA 10121.

The foregoing analysis indicates that the current land use reconfiguration does not merely reallocate land—it redistributes environmental risk, magnifies social vulnerability, and weakens ecological defense systems that buffer the city from climate-induced hazards.

In evaluating land use policy, progress must not be measured by the extent of conversion, but by the protection of life, ecological function, and long-term urban resilience. Development that advances without structural safeguards against disaster exposure or displacement risk cannot be construed as sustainable growth, but rather as vulnerability consolidation through spatial policy.

III. Governing Law and Mandated Implementation Duties

A. Public Safety and the Protection of Life and Property Are Superior State Obligations

Republic Act No. 10121 (Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010) enshrines disaster prevention as a matter of constitutional duty, not policy discretion.

Section 2 (Declaration of Policy) explicitly provides:

“The State shall uphold the people’s constitutional rights to life and property by addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities to disasters…”

This mandate places the preservation of life, property, and community safety above competing development interests, including land commercialization, rezoning, and intensified built-up expansion. Any land use plan that increases risk exposure—whether by permitting mass development in hazard zones, weakening natural buffers, or externalizing environmental risk—may be construed as inconsistent with this statutory duty to address root causes of disaster vulnerability rather than amplify them.

B. Disaster Risk Reduction Is a Mandatory Component of Local Development and Land Use Policy

RA 10121 requires that disaster resilience must not be supplementary, incidental, or reactive, but embedded and operationalized in spatial planning instruments.

Section 11 mandates:

“The Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (LDRRMC) shall ensure that disaster risk reduction and climate change measures are integrated into local development plans, programs and budgets…”

This provision explicitly binds the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) and Zoning Ordinance (ZO) to incorporate hazard-based land suitability, climate risk exposure modeling, geotechnical and hydrological safeguards, slope stability limits, stormwater detention standards, and watershed protection protocols. Failure to embed these elements renders the plan structurally deficient in meeting statutory integration requirements.

C. Local Governments Are Expressly Empowered to Enact Preventive Safety Ordinances

RA 10121 grants Local Government Units (LGUs) not only the authority but the responsibility to regulate land use behaviors that generate disaster risk.

Section 12(c) provides:

“The Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (LDRRMO) may recommend to the Local Sanggunian the enactment of local ordinances consistent with the requirements of this Act.”

This confers a positive duty on local authorities to issue ordinances governing:

slope protection and grading limits,
mandatory geotechnical clearance for upland development,
watershed buffer preservation,
drainage run-off coefficients, detention and retention standards,
prohibition or regulation of construction in low-capability or high-risk zones, and
ecological density caps based on carrying capacity and hazard tolerance.

Hence, the absence of enforceable risk governance standards within the CLUP and ZO is not a policy gap alone—it may constitute regulatory underutilization of statutory powers intended for life-protecting safeguards.

D. NIPAS Classification Is a Legal Status, Not a Guarantee of Ecosystem Defense

Republic Act No. 11038 (Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System or ENIPAS Act), implementing rules and regulations, protects areas through legal designation, but does not automatically equate to forest retention, canopy protection, or hydrological service preservation.

Key statutory parameters include:

Section 12 (Ancestral Lands and Domain, Tenure Rights and Other Private Rights): honors pre-existing rights, uses, and occupied areas;
Section 17 (Special Uses): authorizes Special Use Agreements for Protected Areas (SAPA), allowing development activities under regulated terms.

DAO 2008-26, Section 10(e) – Multiple-Use Zone

“Areas where settlement, traditional and/or sustainable land use, including agriculture, agro forestry, extraction activities and other income-generating or livelihood activities, may be allowed to the extent prescribed in the management plan. Land tenure may be granted to tenured residents, whether indigenous cultural community members or migrants.”

Thus, while NIPAS confers juridical protection, it does not inherently enforce biophysical protectionsuch as:

minimum canopy cover thresholds,
watershed recharge preservation,
erosion control through root systems,
evapotranspiration and rainfall interception functions,
slope stabilization through forest mass,
or surface run-off attenuation.

Stated plainly:

NIPAS is a legal designation; forest is a hydrological defense.
Flood mitigation depends on ecological function, not cartographic labeling.

Replacing “forest land” with “protected area” without defining measurable ecosystem performance standards risks institutionalizing paper protection rather than actual protection.

IV. Urban Development Risks Identified

The current land use reconfiguration demonstrates a structural imbalance between economic land optimization and human settlement protection. The rapid intensification of commercial zoning, without parallel expansion of safe, well-located residential capacity and enforceable environmental safeguards, creates a displacement pressure predictable under established urban economic models. As land values accelerate, middle- and lower-income households are systematically pushed beyond the city core into peripheral and upland settlements, which increasingly overlap with geologically unstable, hydrologically sensitive, and hazard-prone territories.

Empirical spatial overlays and post-event assessments indicate that many of these receiving zones exhibit one or more of the following risk characteristics:

High landslide susceptibility, slope instability, or erosion-prone gradients;
Low soil infiltration capacity and high surface runoff coefficients;
Diminished or fragmented forest cover resulting in weak canopy interception and reduced watershed permeability;
Inadequate or non-engineered stormwater conveyance and drainage systems;
Unregulated settlement expansion along natural flood paths, drainage convergence points, and degraded catchment areas; and
Absence of mandatory geotechnical, hydrological, slope-based, or runoff detention controls in zoning enforcement.

The emergent policy outcome is not managed urban growth, but systemic risk displacement, wherein economic and commercial value is spatially concentrated in safer urban cores while disaster exposure is redistributed toward communities with the least adaptive capacity, weakest infrastructure defenses, and lowest recovery potential.

Under the current configuration, the city faces a convergent risk condition where:

Land market value is maximized, driven by expanded commercial conversion and speculative demand;
Ecological buffering capacity is reduced, diminishing natural flood absorption, slope stabilization, and watershed regulation functions; and
Disaster vulnerability is transferred rather than reduced, concentrating exposure in peri-urban and upland settlements with limited regulatory oversight and public safety infrastructure.

This dynamic constitutes planned exposure, not planned development—a condition where spatial policy does not merely fail to prevent risk, but predictably rechannels populations into areas of heightened hazard without commensurate safety guarantees, environmental defenses, or resilient infrastructure.

Such planning outcomes give rise to critical governance implications:

Spatial Inequity – Secure urban land becomes premium economic space while vulnerable populations are relocated to higher-risk landscapes.
Disaster Risk Externalization – The environmental and humanitarian cost of urban land value amplification is transferred away from beneficiaries and absorbed by at-risk households.
Ecological Vulnerability – The conversion or downgrading of land that provides hydrological and geomorphological protection reduces the city’s natural disaster mitigation capacity.
Regulatory Underspecification – Zoning provisions currently lack enforceable standards on slope thresholds, geotechnical clearance, runoff detention, drainage coefficients, and ecological carrying capacity.
Cumulative Systemic Risk – Localized land use decisions generate cascading impacts that compound flooding, slope failure, livelihood disruption, and long-term displacement risks.

For urban development to qualify as sustainable, lawful, and socially defensible, it must demonstrate not only economic productivity, but proportional protection of life, property, ecological integrity, and intergenerational resilience. A spatial strategy that expands markets while expanding danger cannot be construed as progressive land governance—it is the institutionalization of avoidable vulnerability.

V. Required Implementation Safeguards (Legally Actionable and Non-Repealing)

The City Government of Cebu retains full authority, under its police power, disaster risk governance mandates, environmental protection duties, and land use regulatory powers, to impose supplemental safeguards that are non-repealing, legally enforceable, and implementation-focused, without invalidating the approved CLUP and Zoning Ordinance. These safeguards do not amend the land use plan’s legality; they enforce its constitutional, statutory, and public safety obligations.

The following measures are recommended as mandatory, risk-based, and immediately operationalizable interventions:

1. Hazard-Based Zoning and Development Controls

To operationalize disaster-resilient land governance, the City must impose risk-calibrated development performance standards, including but not limited to:

Prohibition of cut-and-fill development on slopes 18% and above without certified geotechnical clearance, slope stability analysis, and engineered mitigation plans prepared by accredited professionals;
Mandatory stormwater retention, detention, and infiltration requirements per hectare, aligned with minimum runoff absorption and peak discharge reduction metrics;
Impervious surface thresholds for upland developments to preserve natural infiltration, limit surface runoff velocity, and prevent overloading of downstream drainage systems;
Cumulative watershed and sub-basin impact assessments as a precondition for development approvals, ensuring that incremental project clearances do not collectively exceed the ecological and hydraulic carrying capacity of the receiving environment;
Denial of subdivision or site development approvals without an integrated and validated drainage masterplan, compliant with hydrological modeling, outfall capacity verification, and extreme rainfall scenario testing.

These controls are consistent with the City’s duty under RA 10121 to address disaster risk at its source and prevent hazard creation through land development decisions.

2. Moratorium on High-Risk Upland Development Approvals

A time-bound moratorium is recommended for upland and high-risk development applications pending:

the formal adoption of safety thresholds,
codification of engineering and slope protection standards,
completion of hydrological and geomorphic hazard mapping, and
institutionalization of vetting protocols for drainage, slope, and runoff compliance.

A moratorium is not a prohibition—it is a preventive governance mechanism recognized under the State’s police power when public safety and environmental integrity are at risk.

3. Urban Housing Counter-Balance and Anti-Displacement Measures

To prevent involuntary displacement to hazard-prone peripheries, the City should adopt in-situ, non-negotiable housing stabilization measures, including:

Incentives for mid-rise, middle-income, and mixed-income housing developments in central and safe urban zones to offset residential erosion due to commercial conversion;
Residential Retention Overlay Zones to regulate speculative land conversion and protect existing residential communities from market-driven displacement;
Density bonuses or tax incentives tied to inclusive housing production, not merely commercial intensity expansion.

These measures align with the social equity mandate of RA 7279 (Urban Development and Housing Act) and uphold the constitutional policy to provide adequate and safe housing for all.

4. Metro Cebu Watershed, Drainage, and Flood Governance Alignment

Given Cebu City’s shared hydrological systems with adjacent LGUs, the City must initiate a formal inter-local coordination mechanism to govern:

cross-boundary watersheds,
slope and landslide risk corridors,
flood conveyance pathways,
shared drainage outfalls, and
cumulative runoff contribution and absorption loads.

This coordination should include joint hydrological modeling, data-sharing protocols, early warning integration, and harmonized engineering standards, ensuring that interventions upstream do not externalize flooding risks downstream.

5. Democratic Oversight through Multi-Sector Implementation Governance

To strengthen transparency, accountability, and public trust, the City should constitute a Multi-Sector CLUP Implementation Oversight Panel, composed of:

urban planners and environmental scientists,
disaster risk and hydrology experts,
civil society and community representatives,
academic institutions, and
private sector stakeholders with no conflicts of interest.

The Panel shall be mandated to:

monitor compliance with safety standards,
review risk data and implementation performance,
recommend corrective measures, and
publish periodic public accountability reports.

This fulfills the democratic participation requirements embedded in environmental governance principles and strengthens legitimacy in post-approval implementation.

VI. Strategic Governance Principle

A land use plan is not measured by what it permits, but by what it protects.
True urban governance is not revealed in the number of development permits signed, but in the risks prevented, ecosystems safeguarded, and communities kept out of harm’s way.

Development that pushes communities into hazard zones is not progress — it is vulnerability by design. Every approval that disregards floodplains, unstable slopes, storm surge pathways, or critical watersheds transfers the burden of risk from developers to households, local government, and future generations.

Strategic land governance therefore demands:

Prevention over permission — planning decisions must prioritize risk avoidance, not post-disaster mitigation;
People-centered spatial policy — land use must safeguard lives and livelihoods before intensifying land values;
Ecological thresholds as non-negotiables — natural buffers such as rivers, coastlines, mangroves, wetlands, and slopes are not idle lands waiting for conversion, but infrastructure of survival;
Hazard intelligence guiding development direction — growth must flow away from risk, not toward it;
Accountability for induced vulnerability — decisions that knowingly expose communities to avoidable hazards are governance failures, not acts of economic development.

Cities rise in resilience not by expanding footprints, but by respecting limits. The most enduring urban legacy is not the tallest structure, but the safest settlement. A land use plan worthy of its mandate is thus one that protects first, develops second, and defends the right of communities to live beyond danger lines.

VII. Final Recommendation

The analysis demonstrates that while the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) of Cebu City is legally approved, its implementation carries measurable and foreseeable risks that directly implicate public safety, social equity, ecological stability, and disaster exposure.

Key spatial shifts—expanded commercial zoning, sharp reduction of agricultural and forest cover, conversion pressures on upland areas, minimal socialized housing allocation, and the absence of enforceable geotechnical and hydrological safeguards—point to a structural imbalance: economic land optimization has outpaced environmental risk mitigation and human settlement protection.

Recent climate-triggered disasters, including the impacts of Typhoon Tino, confirm that flood and slope risks are not abstractions in planning maps but lived realities interacting with land use decisions. These events reveal that disaster vulnerability in Cebu City is not merely a natural condition; it is increasingly a spatial policy outcome.

The law is clear that:

public safety takes precedence over land market expansion (RA 10121),
disaster risk reduction must be integrated into land use governance,
and ecological classification does not automatically translate to ecological protection (RA 11038).

Accordingly, the CLUP’s legitimacy going forward will not be determined by its passage, but by whether its implementation protects lives, stabilizes watersheds, anticipates climate realities, and prevents the displacement of risk onto the most vulnerable populations.

The City now reaches a governance inflection point:

Urban development must no longer be assessed solely by how much land it converts, but by how much harm it prevents.

If landscapes are planned without limits, disasters will determine those limits instead. If development precedes safety controls, the city itself inherits the liabilities of unmanaged risk.

Cebu City has the legal mandate, scientific basis, and moral obligation to ensure that growth strengthens resilience rather than eroding it. The next chapter of city-building must therefore be judged not by development approved, but by disaster averted and lives protected.