When Typhoon Tino’s flash floods struck Liloan, Cebu, in November 2025, Facebook became more than a place to check on family and friends. Survivors shared accounts of loss, appealed for help, and expressed anger. Local government pages posted warnings, situation updates, and messages about recovery.
The posts described the same disaster. But they did not necessarily tell the same story.
In the study Narrating Disaster, Contesting Resilience: A Rhetorical Arena Analysis of Survivor and Government Facebook Posts After Typhoon Tino’s Flash Floods in Cebu, Philippines, Communication Program Lecturer Patrick Byron Gattoc examines how survivors and local government communicated about the disaster—and how their accounts differed in explaining what happened, who was responsible, and what it meant to move forward.
The study approaches Facebook as a rhetorical arena: a space where different voices converge during a crisis, communicating with, responding to, or sometimes talking past one another. Rather than treating disaster communication as something delivered only by institutions, this perspective recognizes that survivors and other members of the public also participate in shaping how a crisis is understood.
Two voices, two different timelines
Gattoc analyzed 83 Facebook posts published between November 3 and 26, 2025: 13 survivor-authored posts whose authors gave consent for the study, and 70 posts from the Liloan mayoral and municipal pages.
The findings reveal a significant difference in how the two groups explained the flooding.
In nine of the 13 survivor posts, the accounts reached beyond the immediate typhoon and flash floods. They connected the disaster to issues such as flood-control failures, corruption, environmental degradation, and local officials. These posts situated the flooding within a longer history of decisions and conditions that survivors believed contributed to the damage.
None of the 70 government posts made those same connections to flood-control failures, corruption, or local officials. Instead, government posts largely focused on preparedness, immediate conditions, public information, and recovery. Many provided updates on the situation, explained communication disruptions, or encouraged residents to move forward.
The difference was not simply in the details each group shared. It was in where each account began—and where it placed responsibility.
Survivors’ accounts often drew on firsthand experience and the consequences of the flooding. Government posts generally presented a shorter timeline centered on the typhoon and its immediate aftermath. As a result, the two voices frequently talked past each other: survivors raised questions about the causes of the disaster, while government posts addressed immediate conditions and response efforts.
When resilience becomes a point of disagreement
Another important finding concerns the language of resilience.
In disaster communication, resilience is often associated with endurance, collective strength, and the ability to recover after hardship. In the Liloan Facebook posts, government pages carried themes of readiness and recovery through messages associated with hashtags such as #AndamLiloan and #RiseUpLiloan. The study coded 11 government posts as deploying resilience narratives, although none explicitly used the word resilience.
Survivors, however, did not always embrace this framing.
The two survivor posts that mentioned resilience rejected its romanticization. One called for people to stop celebrating resilience when, in the author’s view, the flooding could have been prevented through properly implemented flood-control projects. Another argued that the language of recovery should give way to a demand for justice and accountability.
This contrast points to a larger question: when people are expected to demonstrate resilience after a disaster, does the emphasis on their capacity to recover also risk diverting attention from the conditions that made them vulnerable in the first place?
For Gattoc, resilience is not a neutral or fixed concept. Its meaning depends on who invokes it, the circumstances in which it is used, and the other narratives circulating around it. In this case, messages of readiness and recovery existed alongside survivors’ demands to examine preventable harm and government responsibility.
Faith, communication, and the meanings of recovery
The study also found that survivors and government pages drew on religious and moral language, but used it differently.
Government posts used religious expressions primarily to reassure the public and accompany updates about conditions. Survivor posts, meanwhile, expressed gratitude for survival while also making room for grief, anger, and demands for accountability. Shared religious language did not necessarily mean that the two groups shared the same interpretation of the disaster.
These differences show why examining individual posts in isolation may not be enough. A message of hope or recovery can take on a different meaning when read alongside another voice’s account of loss or accusation.
Reading the stories behind a crisis
Beyond its findings about Typhoon Tino, the study offers a methodological contribution to crisis communication research. It brings together Rhetorical Arena Theory and cultural narrative analysis to examine who speaks during a crisis and how their stories are constructed and how they relate to one another.
By looking at the structure, content, and form of posts, the approach helps identify how different voices assign causes, frame responsibility, and define the struggle over a disaster’s meaning. It also shows how narratives can reinforce, challenge, or simply pass one another without directly engaging.
The study is based on public Facebook posts from one locality, with the survivor accounts limited to 13 posts whose authors consented to their inclusion. Its findings are therefore not intended to represent all survivors, government communication, or disaster experiences across the Philippines. Still, they offer a close look at how public narratives can diverge in the aftermath of a shared crisis.
For disaster communication and governance, the findings raise an important consideration: messages about recovery and resilience cannot stand in for conversations about accountability. Supporting communities after a disaster also means taking seriously the questions survivors raise about why the disaster unfolded as it did.
The flood may eventually recede from public attention. The stories told about it—and the questions they leave unanswered—deserve to be heard.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH
Researcher: Patrick Byron Gattoc
Affiliation: College of Communication, Art, and Design, University of the Philippines Cebu
Title: Narrating Disaster, Contesting Resilience: A Rhetorical Arena Analysis of Survivor and Government Facebook Posts After Typhoon Tino’s Flash Floods in Cebu, Philippines
Research Focus: Crisis communication, digital narratives, disaster communication, and resilience
