Hi everyone. It’s Leon. This opportunity, I would like to share my perceptive of qualitative study I did back in the Philippines months before.. and hope that it could promote the work in your future endeavor.
As a student in civil engineering, most of my work existed inside datasets, models, and statistical outputs. Flood depth became numbers in spreadsheets. Recovery became indicators and variables. Entire communities were transformed into rows of data that could be analyzed, compared, and visualized.
Although quantiative study is important to reach a big generability of the conclusion, qualitaitve study seem to be undermined, despite its position is as important.
This trip reminded me why fieldwork matters. Not because qualitative research replaces quantitative methods, but because it restores the human dimension that numbers alone can flatten.
It was a reminder that behind every dataset are real people navigating uncertainty, difficult decisions, and unequal realities during repeating disaster such as floods.
The purposes of the third trip
This time, I returned to the Philippines as a researcher trying to understand how people recover after floods – and why some recover faster than others. I conducted interviews and focus group discussions in flood-prone communities, listening to stories about rebuilding homes, borrowing money, protecting families, and preparing for the next disaster even before fully recovering from the previous one.
Sometimes, while listening to participants describe repeated flooding, I realized how easy it is to discuss “recovery” in academic papers without fully grasping what recovery actually feels like in everyday life post-disaster.
Beyond rebuilding walls or replacing furniture. For vulnerable people,
Recovery is anxiety whenever heavy rain starts at night.
Recovery is parents pretending to stay calm for their children.
Rcovery is sharing a loaf of bread for four member of family after disaster.
Recovery is deciding whether limited money should go toward repairing a house, or buying food.
Recovery is exhaustion…..
Limits of Numbers
Quantitative research remains extremely important in my work. Without it, we cannot identify large-scale patterns or measure inequality systematically. And the conclusion sounds weak.. to be accepted for public..
But during my further progress of my research, I felt that these numbers only tell part of the story.
Without placing myself back to the communities, I could not get the complete stories, and things from a literature will simply be an asumption.
Before the field survey, I convinced myself and was so sure that the reason the rich recover faster is due to selling/ liquidify their asset.
Turns out it was just a small part of the mecanishm, and which it come to realisation after the field survey.
Communities, relatives, relation in Phillipines is strong and supportive, but again, the type of help and donnation was diverged depending on the social strata. For the rich who experienced disater, it is more likely for them to received better type of help to even cash.
Some participants spoke about loans and borrowing, which is the priviledge of the rich.
For rich family, loans is investment opportunities, hoping to maintain their business with the hope of higher return.
For poorest families, loans were not opportunities. They were last resorts. They borrowed money not because they wanted financial leverage or investment opportunities, but because they had run out of options.
That difference matters.
And it is difficult to fully understand through numerical analysis alone.
Liquidify asset was also mentioned during the field. The rich has more than one car, and in the difficult time, they sold one of them. For the poor, there is nothing they could sell.
The numbers in my quantitative study would have not reflect people emotion.
Some participants laughed while telling difficult stories. Like when a woman describe how they was like a zombie running towards food truck post-disaster.
Or how a woman forced to smile with glassy eyes when she recalled how she worried so much about her sicked father alone at home when the water rise so fast.
Why Quantitative Research Still Matters
In an era increasingly dominated by big data, machine learning, and predictive modeling, qualitative research can sometimes appear less visible or less valued.
But after this trip, I believe even more strongly that qualitative research remains essential.
Because human experiences are messy.
Qualitative research allows us to listen to those dimensions directly.
It helps explain the stories hidden behind statistical patterns.
And sometimes, it reminds researchers themselves why their work matters in the first place.
When I returned from the Philippines, I brought back interview recordings, field notes, and research data. But I also brought a new insight how important qualitative study with quantitative study.
A reminder that behind every graph, regression model, or recovery indicator are people trying their best to rebuild lives under conditions that are often unequal long before disasters even occur.
This trip reminded me that as civil engineer with word “civil” on it, it should not only aim to measure reality.
It should also try to understand social aspect in it.
And most of the time, understanding begins not with numbers, or complex equation or model, but with sitting across from someone and listening to their story!
Finally, here is some of the picture I took during the meeting preparation, surveys, focus group discussion! Thanks for all the support from the University of Philippines, JICA, Kawasaki Sensei, Budz, and Toyota Foundation to make this process so meaningful.
