The Political Ecology of Philippine Migration in a Changing Climate

Abstract

In a warming planet, climate variability, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise are putting pressure on poor and precarious rural and urban households to seek livelihood opportunities abroad. This phenomenon is evident in the Philippines, a country highly vulnerable to climate change and a leading exporter of migrant workers. This paper examines the intricate relationship among climate change impacts and interventions, (mal)adaptation of poor rural and urban households, and climate-induced (im)mobility. While the Philippine literature already demonstrates many of the complexities of the climate-migration nexus, there is still a need to examine understudied topics such as the effects of both climate change impacts and interventions, the role of other environmental and economic crises that overlap with climate change, and the implications of and conditions leading to climate immobility. Uncovering these additional complexities, especially through a political ecology lens, emphasizes the need to interrogate and inform both migration and climate/disaster governance.

Keywords

climate change climate adaptation climate mitigation climate migration Philippines

Introduction

The Philippine experience captures the complexity of the intersection between climate change and migration. While the archipelago is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme weather events (Porio 2011; Mendoza et al. 2014), the apocalyptic image of mass climate migration has yet to materialize in the Philippine context. As one of the world's leading exporters of migrant labor, the country has at least a million overseas Filipino workers (re)deployed annually since the 2000s (Opiniano and Ang 2024). One would then expect a profusion of Filipino farmers and coastal dwellers seeking environmental refuge in other countries. What we see, however, are complex manifestations of (im)mobility amidst economic and environmental pressures. Despite the archipelago being a hotspot for super typhoons, climate change is merely one of many stressors. Meanwhile, the Philippines has become a testing ground for “green economy” and other climate mitigation projects (Montefrio and Dressler 2016), adding to development pressures that may further induce climate migration.

Current scholarship on climate migration in the Philippines illustrates the complexities of the climate-migration nexus, but many gaps remain. In this paper, I analyze and synthesize the complexities already foregrounded in the literature, as well as those I deem understated. I present my analysis in three parts. First, I show the following complications in the link between international migration and climate change impacts: (1) various manifestations of climate change leading to multiple migration trajectories; (2) climate migration taking place in multifaceted contexts; (3) climate migration having multiple drivers beyond climate change; (4) various experiences of climate migration across social groups; (5) crisis-induced internal migration being more prominent than international migration; and (6) climate immobility being a principal concern. These complications are addressed unevenly in the literature.

In the second part of this article, I argue that migration resulting from climate change interventions does not receive the same scholarly attention as climate change impacts. I then provide a case study on the climate intervention-migration nexus in the Philippines to underscore the importance of this relationship. Finally, I emphasize the indeterminacy and ambivalence of the outcomes of climate migration on the lives of migrants and their left-behind families and communities. The paper then concludes with recommendations for both research and policy, as well as implications for the broader scholarship on the climate-migration nexus.

Climate Change Impacts and Migration

In the Philippines and other geographies vulnerable to climate change, the relationship between migration and climate variability, extreme weather, and sea-level rise is complicated. Instead of just climate refugees fleeing disaster-stricken communities (Myers 2002; Biermann and Boas 2010), what we see are complex (mal)adaptive behaviors and migration patterns. My analysis of the literature reveals six main themes articulating the complexities of the connections between international migration and climate change impacts.

First, various manifestations of climate change can lead to multiple migration trajectories. Climate change occurs as slow-onset events—such as rising temperatures, droughts, and sea-level rise—and rapid-onset ones—such as catastrophic typhoons and flash floods, each having varying effects on migration. For example, slow-onset events can instigate long-distance and permanent migration than rapid-onset ones (Castells-Quintana, Krause and McDermott 2021). The different intensities of climate change events can also have diverse effects. Parajon and Vasquez (2020) demonstrate that less intense weather events, such as tropical depressions, are more strongly correlated with international migration. They conjecture that stronger weather events tend to significantly damage assets, impact health, and substantially affect incomes, thereby constraining the ability of household members to migrate overseas.

Second, climate migration takes place in multifaceted contexts. Within the current literature, the agrarian sector is the most well-studied context. Yet, academics have continued to question whether the link between climate change and migration is truly as clear-cut as it seems. From a global perspective, statistical studies have found that a reduction in agricultural productivity due to climate change contributes to an increase in emigration rates, especially among poor agrarian-based countries (Falco, Galeotti and Olper 2019). The findings of Bordey et al. (2013) in the Philippines corroborate this claim by illustrating the correlation between climate-impacted rice yields and migration (see also Bohra-Mishra et al. 2017). However, other scholars argue that quantitative (econometric) studies linking climate change, agriculture, and international migration tend to be “based on statistical associations that have nothing to do with causal inferences” (Falco, Donzelli and Olper 2018, 16). In many cases, intermediary factors may exist between agriculture and climate-induced migration, such as conflict (Chandra et al. 2017), which is prevalent in specific rural and urban contexts in the Philippines characterized by a long history of ethnic, religious, and class tensions (Montefrio 2013). Moreover, there could be many other contexts beyond agriculture in which climate change drives migration (Falco, Galeotti and Olper 2019), such as disaster risks in coastal cities where landless urban poor communities reside (Williams, Arguillas and Arguillas 2020).

Third, the drivers of agrarian change and international migration can also be multifaceted, going beyond climate change. While climate change is now being framed as one of the primary factors, if not the most critical, in driving rural precarity and poverty, many other crucial environmental and economic crises are also at play (Natarajan, Brickell and Parsons 2019). In the Philippines, climate change could trigger “stepping stone events” such as disruptions in education and family breakups, which ultimately push those affected to seek employment opportunities abroad (Weeks 2025). Additionally, multiple slow- and rapid-onset crisis events can overlap or occur in succession. In the province of Capiz, for example, Abasolo and Montefrio (2025) documented the overlapping of crisis events in the last 6 years: a devastating super typhoon, a global pandemic, high economic inflation due to oil price hikes brought about by the Russia-Ukraine war, and the decline of fish stocks due to an impending ecosystem collapse. This succession has left many poor small-scale fisherfolk mired in debt cycles and traps (see also Montefrio and Abasolo 2025). They argue that, in the context of multiple, overlapping crises, it is challenging to determine the extent to which climate change contributes to precarity and changes in livelihoods, such as internal migration (from rural coastal communities to cities) and international migration.

Fourth, the experience of climate change impacts and migration varies across social identities. Social class is the most straightforward mediating factor. Smallholder farmers with insecure land tenure, the small-scale fisherfolk, and the landless urban poor are most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Additionally, fewer individuals are able to migrate overseas due to limited access to social and economic capital (Bordey et al. 2013). Differentiation across social identities is also layered. Women in vulnerable communities are even more disproportionately affected, as they tend to be, on average, poorer, less educated, and less endowed with access to land and natural resources than men (Chindarkar 2012). Young and widowed women are also more likely to emigrate and face new risks and uncertainties abroad (Chandra et al. 2017). Ethnicity is another layer to add to the differentiation, especially in the rural Philippines, where tense inter-ethnic relations among, for example, Christians, Indigenous peoples, and Muslims, commonly exist.

Fifth, while there are many cases of climate-induced international migration worldwide, internal migration (i.e., the movement of people within a country's boundaries) is the more prominent phenomenon in climate-vulnerable countries such as the Philippines. Quantitative studies by Bordey et al. (2013) suggest a high incidence of climate-induced international migration in the Philippines, but such statistical models cannot prove causality. Among the few undeniable cases of climate-induced international migration in the Philippines are those that received immigration relief from Canada and the United States after Typhoon Haiyan (Mosuela and Matias 2015). On the contrary, there appears to be more evidence supporting the case for internal migration (Letta, Montalbano and Paolantonio 2024; see also Hoffmann et al. 2020). Many studies on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in the Philippines describe mobility in terms of resettlement from one locality to another within or beyond rural and urban boundaries (see, for example, Tadgell, Mortsch, and Doberstein 2017). Resettlement can be state-driven and may include forced relocation that uses discourses on hazards and disaster risk reduction as a means of controlling land (Alvarez and Cardenas 2019).

Lastly, immobility is often neglected in climate change and migration studies. Nawrotzki and DeWaard (2018) point out this mobility bias, urging the need to give ample attention to those who are unable to move and are left behind. In many cases, those affected by climate change stay in place (Black et al. 2013; Koubi, Stoll, and Spilker 2016). Immobility can be voluntary, but the precarious and poor are often forced to stay (Kaczan and Orgill-Meyer 2020). In the Philippines, while some coastal dwellers affected by extreme weather events and disasters eventually relocate and migrate overseas, many do not have near- or long-term plans for moving (Williams, Arguillas, and Arguillas 2020). Their reasons for staying include the lack of resources, an attachment to their place and livelihoods, a belief in prioritizing present economic challenges rather than future hazards, and a general preference for in-situ adaptation (Jamero et al. 2017; Valenzuela, Esteban, and Motoharu 2020; Williams, Arguillas, and Arguillas 2020; Ayeb-Karlsson and Uy 2022).

The complications discussed above highlight the heterogeneity of migration due to climate change impacts, which is shaped and mediated by a myriad of factors, including the severity and frequency of climate change impacts, the interactions of these impacts with other environmental and economic crises, the socio-cultural and political-economic contexts of the concerned localities, the social identities and relations within affected communities, and the effectiveness of climate governance. This list is non-exhaustive, and certain complications—such as those related to climate immobility and multiple, overlapping drivers—are discussed less frequently in the literature than others. These areas will require more attention in future research, as I discuss below. Next, I extend the complexities of the climate-migration nexus beyond climate change impacts to include the effects of climate change interventions.

Climate Change Interventions and Migration

Climate change is not just about the problems the warming planet has created, but also about the institutional interventions aimed at mitigating these problems and helping societies adapt. I argue that climate mitigation and adaptation interventions can induce internal and international migration and should be given attention in academic and policy conversations, especially in the context of countries with substantial remaining ecological frontiers or “carbon stocks,” such as the Philippines.

In the Philippines, state- and market-driven “green economy” and “low-carbon” development projects that aim to contribute to climate mitigation—such as renewable energy development and reforestation projects—have proliferated since the 2000s. Currently, many of these initiatives target ecological and agrarian frontiers in the upland regions of the Philippine archipelago. A key mitigation effort is the implementation of the National REDD + Strategy, a governance tool that promises to simultaneously mitigate carbon emissions and uplift the lives of forest peoples.¹ This initiative, however, is at risk of falling short of meeting its social development goals. Analyzing one REDD + pilot project in Southern Leyte, Peras et al. (2016) found an excessive emphasis on carbon stock enhancement and insufficient attention to sustaining the livelihoods of community members. REDD + projects in the Philippines appear to replicate the existing problems already pervasive in other forest governance regimes. Particularly prevalent is the lack of proper regard for the traditional livelihoods of forest community members, especially the Indigenous practice of swidden cultivation in the uplands, in whatever context of “green governance,” whether to protect biodiversity or enhance carbon stocks (Dressler et al. 2021).

The adverse impacts of green governance on smallholder livelihoods have profound implications for the movement of marginalized populations and should therefore be considered part of the discussion on climate migration. In the ecological frontiers of the province of Palawan, for example, rural development projects such as the production of biofuels from oil palm and other “low-carbon” commodities like natural rubber have contributed to the control of swidden cultivation practices, the erosion of subsistence life, and the exclusion of smallholder farmers, many of whom are Indigenous peoples who have insecure land tenure (Montefrio 2017; Montefrio and Dressler 2016). Struggling to sustain their swidden agriculture, smallholder farming households have explored ways to diversify their livelihoods and incomes by, for example, working as laborers in cash crop plantations and construction sites, engaging in contract farming arrangements, finding employment in the cities, and for a few, exploring overseas work (Dressler, de Koning, and Montefrio 2016). Mobile smallholder farmers in southern Palawan have engaged in undocumented temporary or cyclical migration to Sabah, Malaysia, to work as laborers in oil palm plantations and construction sites. Those already exposed to the oil palm industry in Palawan have become entangled in plantation networks and have been targeted by labor recruiters from Malaysia (Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol 2014).

Just as those affected by climate change impacts are immobile, poor households affected by climate change interventions may also be unable to migrate, even internally. In Palawan, Indigenous smallholder farmers have progressively moved towards the interior uplands as they encounter development pressures. This mobility trend has become increasingly challenging, as the vast interior uplands are converted to protected and conservation forests, preventing Indigenous peoples from opening second-growth forests for swidden cultivation (Smith 2020). Only a few upland smallholders could venture outside the province, and even fewer could travel to other countries, such as Malaysia (Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol 2014). Many Indigenous smallholder farmers in Palawan emphasize that they see their identity as tied to their land, preferring not to leave unless forced out through violent means (Montefrio 2017).

So far, I have discussed the factors and drivers leading to climate migration. However, a report on the complexities of the climate-migration nexus is incomplete without discussing the effects of international migration on the lives of migrants, their families left behind, and their communities of origin. Next, I discuss the complex outcomes of climate migration.

Facing the Outcomes of Climate Migration

Public and certain academic and policy discourses frame migration as a failure to adapt to environmental change (Gemenne and Blocher 2017). However, many scholars see it as an adaptation strategy (Black et al. 2011; McLeman and Smit 2006). Gemenne and Blocher urge us to view migration as a response that affects the adaptive capacities of migrants and those left behind in their communities of origin. Households, for example, may migrate to intensify livelihood activities, sell assets such as land, and rely on public programs and social networks (including availing themselves of credit) without clearly defining whether the response is an adaptive strategy, an approach to achieving economic mobility, or something else (Kaczan and Orgill-Meyer 2020). Hence, climate migration can be interpreted as both an unfortunate consequence of maladaptation and an agentic strategy to adapt.

The framing of migration as adaptation suggests an outcome where mobility helps migrants and their families cope with the impacts of climate change. Migration enables vulnerable and precarious Filipinos to move to another place with fewer climate risks.² It also helps them acquire resources that families left behind can utilize to assuage risks back home. The outcomes, however, are not always positive. Permanent migrants settling in a new place and temporary migrants working abroad may encounter other risks and uncertainties, some of which could be greater than the ones they faced back home. Meanwhile, those left behind may face new risks due to the absence of a family member who had migrated. Ayeb-Karlsson and Uy (2022), for example, describe how migrants driven out by slow-onset crisis events in the Philippines experience mental health issues due to a sense of loss of place, identity, and social networks. Likewise, family members left behind face issues of eroding well-being due to a feeling of abandonment, pressures to serve debt payments, and other social tensions.

The overall material outcomes are complex and often difficult to predict. Remittances, often in the form of money, have become the yardstick of the material outcomes of migration—that is, whether remittances help families and communities adapt to climate change, assuage climate risks and precarity, and achieve social mobility. Yang and Choi (2007) provide quantitative empirical evidence to show that remittances can act as an insurance or a buffer against income shocks resulting from weather-related variability. From a qualitative standpoint, Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol (2014) illustrate how households of cyclical migrants in Palawan benefit from working in oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia, translating economic and social remittances into tangible risk-mitigating assets, such as newly renovated and upgraded houses and novel livelihood opportunities. In numerous cases, however, remittance flows are unstable and insufficient to pay off debts incurred during the migration process and due to other crisis events (Ayeb-Karlsson and Uy 2022).

Beyond the household level, remittances also transform community-level social, political, and economic dynamics, as well as ecosystems and landscapes, in complex ways (Peluso and Purwanto 2018). For example, remittances can have varying effects across communities in the Philippines. In southern Palawan, economic remittances and ideas of rural development flowing back from Sabah have contributed to the expansion of oil palm plantations in several municipalities, further fueling social differentiation and the exclusion of Indigenous smallholder farmers. The expansion of oil palm plantations has also led to the conversion of fallow lands and second-growth forests, potentially contributing to increased net greenhouse gas emissions. However, a different effect was observed in another municipality where a community decided not to engage in oil palm production due to stories—social remittances—that a return migrant brought back. The stories vividly described the adverse environmental impacts of oil palm plantations in Malaysian landscapes (Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol 2014).

It is worth noting that, in addition to the already complex analysis of climate migration outcomes, there remain gaps in the scholarship. Aside from studies on disaster-related internal resettlement (Alvarez and Cardenas 2019), there is limited research on the role of the state in climate-induced international migration and its impacts on Philippine society. While a few studies highlight the role of civil society and activism in responding to climate change disasters (Mosuela and Matias 2015), questions about how source nations can govern climate migration and its multifaceted outcomes remain relatively underexplored in the existing literature.

Conclusion

The Philippines is an important case for examining the complexities of the climate-migration nexus, given the country's extensive history of international labor migration, its vulnerability to climate change and other economic and environmental crises, its potential for climate mitigation and development projects, and the pervasive development issues its rural and urban poor communities continue to face. In this paper, I presented an overview of the current state of scholarship on the climate-migration nexus in the Philippines, with emphasis on uncovering complexity. I began with the relatively established scholarship on migration induced by climate change impacts, followed by what I perceive as a glaring absence of discourse on international migration resulting from climate change interventions. I then interrogated the ambivalences of climate migration outcomes. While these insights highlight the literature's recognition of the complexities of climate change and migration in the Philippine archipelago, there is still much to be uncovered and learned. I suggest avenues where future scholarly and policy conversations can be further explored.

For research, more studies are needed to examine the climate-migration nexus, employing not only quantitative analysis but also qualitative and mixed-method approaches. Research should not obsess about proving causal linkages between migration and climate change. Instead, there should also be space to study the lived experiences of climate-induced mobility and the structures that shape these experiences. The following are research topics that merit further exploration in the Philippine context: the complex relationships between migration and climate (mal)adaptation as these intersect with other slow- or rapid-onset crisis events; the local political economy of climate governance, especially climate change interventions, driving land politics, exclusions, and ultimately international migration; the complex material, socio-cultural, and political-economic impacts of climate migration on communities of origin and environments; the links between internal and international migration in the context of climate change; feedback loops between climate change impacts and interventions and international migration; and the driving factors and outcomes of immobility, to name a few. I add that many of these topics can be best explored through a political ecology lens, as exemplified in some of the studies mentioned above (for example, Montefrio, Ortiga, and Josol 2014; Chandra et al. 2017; Peluso and Purwanto 2018; Natarajan, Brickell, and Parsons 2019; Smith 2020; Dressler et al. 2021).

For policy, migration governance should explore ways to support international migration for climate adaptation. More migration trajectories and corridors beyond domestic and construction work are emerging, expanding opportunities for climate adaptation. For example, a growing number of industrialized countries, such as Japan and South Korea, face severe demographic transitions and desperately need temporary agricultural workers. Filipino farmers affected by climate change impacts can fill such employment gaps. If further research reveals an overall positive outcome for climate adaptation resulting from overseas agrarian work, migration governance in the Philippines could leverage such opportunities with the right amount of protection and support. There is also a need to recognize the multiple governance implications of the climate-migration nexus beyond labor migration concerns. The priority should be to address the roots of the problem by ensuring that climate and disaster governance minimizes the adverse effects of climate change interventions and provides adequate institutional support to those vulnerable to climate change impacts (Walsch 2018). Currently, governance falls short in addressing climate vulnerability and precarity in the archipelago.

On a final note, current (and future) studies on the Philippine case offer lessons not just for the climate-migration nexus in the Philippine archipelago but also for many other developing countries in the Southeast Asian region and beyond. The situationality of every geographic context may offer unique attributes to add to the complexity of our understanding of climate change and migration. However, I imagine that, just like the Philippines, many other developing countries also have citizens who are (im)mobile and face multiple economic and environmental crises, on top of climate change impacts and development pressures from climate intervention projects.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Marvin Joseph F. Montefrio

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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