265 A society’s past accommodation and constant exposure to threat is crucial to the generation of its historical development and present culture, especially in the case of states like the Philippines, which are geographically located in hazard-prone areas. 1 In fact, the history of the archipelago is largely shaped by the interrelationship of the natural with the human, of the physical with the social. Susanna Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith refer to this interaction between humans and their environment as “mutuality” and argue that where it is lacking, disasters are more likely to occur. 2 As Susan Stonich so aptly phrases it, there is a need to “balance the cultural/social construction of nature with a meaningful consideration (and analysis) of the natural construc- tion of the cultural and social.” 3 For Filipinos, hazard and disaster are simply accepted aspects of daily life, what can be termed a frequent life experience. That is to say, disaster should be perceived not as an abnormal occurrence, as it is usually depicted through the epistemo- logical lens of the Western social sciences, but as a routine, everyday event. 4 It is so ordinary that Philippine cultures are partly the product of adaptation by communities to these phenomena though processes that permit the incorporation of threat into daily life, or what can be called the “normalization of threat.” Specifically, this chapter traces the historical evolution of how Philippine society at the national level and Philippine communities at the local level have sought to cope with repeated hazards and the disasters those hazards spawn. 5 10 Cultures of Disaster, Cultures of Coping Hazard as a Frequent Life Experience in the Philippines Greg Bankoff