Research Question 1: What are the trends in internal displacement caused by natural disasters in the Philippines, and how does it compare to other Southeast Asian countries?

To answer this research question, we want to visualize the number of internal displacement reports in the three Southeast Asian countries (Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia) over the years (2008-2022).

From initial observation, it is apparent that the number of internal displaced persons in the Philippines is consistently higher than the two other countries, with Vietnam and Indonesia never going above 2,000,000, and the Philippines going as high as 7,000,000. The significance of such difference between the countries is left to the hypothesis testing (see Hypothesis Test), but initial observation indicates greater displacement in the Philippines compared to other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam and Indonesia.

Some notable events in the Philippines include the Super Typhoon Yolanda (2013), Super Typhoon Glenda (2014), and Super Typhoon Ferdie (2016).

Research Question 2: How does the type of natural disaster and the existing policies influence the number of displaced individuals within the Philippines?

From initial observation, it is apparent that storms and floods are the most common cause of internal displacement in the country for any given year, going as high as 6.6 million IDPs for storm disasters (2013) and 1.5 million IDPs for floods (2012). For reference, the third most common cause of displacement, earthquakes, peaked at around 400,000 IDPs in 2019, while other disasters relatively rarely cause displacement. The reason for this can be traced to the fact that the Philippines is geographically located within the Pacific Typhoon Belt – a region particularly prone to typhoons [2].

An analysis of the different hazards and their prevalence sets the stage for more optimal discussions on disaster risk reduction and management, especially in consideration of existing efforts and policies.

Hypothesis Testing

To determine whether a significant difference exists among the three southeast asian countries, a one-way ANOVA is performed, with the country as the predictor variable and the number of internally displaced persons as the outcome variable.

The one way ANOVA's result reveal a p-value of 1.67e-12, which is less than 0.05. This means we reject the null hypothesis, indicating that there is a significant difference among the three countries (PH, VN, ID) in terms of their internal displacement

Despite being within the same area in southeast asia, there appears to be a difference in displacement patterns. Based on initial data exploration (and as observed from the plots answering the research questions), this difference is most likely due to Philippines having a much higher displacement compared to the other two countries. However, the data could be influenced by other factors as well (e.g., unreported events causing low displacement figures), so it is best to conduct further tests upon availability of data to derive definite conclusions.

Further testing using Mann-Whitney, it can be confirmed that the Philippines is the group with the significantly different IDP, with Indonesia and Vietnam having no significant difference (p value = 0.14657) and Philippines showing significant difference for both.