Catastrophes dites « naturelles » et développement : réflexions sur l'origine des désastres aux Philippines

<alinea/> The present paper tracks the causes of the so-called « natural » disasters in the Philippines. It argues that the sharp increase in the number of disasters during the XXth century is not natural in origin. It rather results from the vulnerabilization of the Philippine society due to the recent demographic dynamics, the difficult access to resources and the political context. Those structural causes of disasters led, during the last decades, a large number of Filipinos to settle in hazard-prone places while still being vulnerable should natural hazard occur.