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The 2018 Naga City Landslide:
Seven Years Later
The 2018 Naga City Landslide:
Seven Years Later
By Jake Atienza
STANCe Fellow and PhD student in Global and International Studies at the University of California in Irvine (United States).
Naga City, Cebu, Philippines – September 20, 2025 – September 20 marks the 7th anniversary of the deadly landslide at Apo Land and Quarry Corporation’s (ALQC) mining site in Naga City. Every year since 2018, residents remember and pay tribute to the family, friends, and neighbors who lost their lives. Reports estimate between 78 and over 100 deaths. Seven years later, residents continue to seek justice and work to stop mining corporations from quarrying their land.
A few highlights:
In the early morning of September 20, 2018, a landslide at Apo’s quarry impacted sitios Tagaytay and Sindulan in Barangay Tinaan. The debris buried people and houses. Reports estimate 78 and over 100 deaths, while over 8,000 residents in 5 barangays surrounding the quarry were forcibly evacuated.
In response, residents, allied organizations, activists, and Church leaders protested in Naga and the provincial capital of Cebu City. Some turned to social media to air grievances, addressing the mining companies and the government directly.
Some residents were sued for libel by local politicians, including the former Naga City Mayor. Local organizers, alongside pro bono lawyers, had to raise funds and post bail for those who were jailed.
On November 7, 2018, residents filed a class action lawsuit against Mexican mining conglomerate Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc., ALQC, Apo Cement Corporation, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Region Office VII (MGB-VII), City Government of Naga, and the Province of Cebu. After a 2019 order citing the dismissal of the case, followed by Plaintiffs’ appeal, the case closed on April 2022. The presiding judge ruled that the plaintiffs, the residents, through their legal counsel failed to cite a cause of action, that the case did not meet the requirements to be considered a class action suit, and that the Plaintiffs’ Notice of Appeal was filed out of time.
The political dynamics in and outside the law render the experiences of death and bodily harm, dispossession, material damage (houses), and coercion invisible.
The Philippines is among the deadliest countries for land defenders, with mining the most volatile sector. Mining contention on the island province of Cebu involves an intersection of political and corporate interests, and a generational struggle against dispossession and marginalization.
The case of Naga demonstrates how mining contention is rooted, produced, and reproduced by a clash of worldviews, dominated by a historically rooted epistemic order or logic that views nature as a commodifiable, nonliving object. This, I argue, is in stark contrast to a more relational relationship with place and/or nature in the Bisayan archipelago. Aside from quarrying, residents in Naga, for example, speak of Naga as a place where they plant trees, raise families, and take care of land that feed children and animals. Beyond a geographic orientation of mining, an epistemological one frames the economy of mining as the loss of knowledge and “cognitive injustice” (Santos 2014). Moving away from quarries as sites of violence, the rule of law as a site of mining reveals asymmetrical power dynamics between the state, corporations, and mining-affected residents. Various primary sources, including legal documents and interviews, demonstrate how Naga, as a place of intergenerational connection, is turned into a site of extraction. Epistemological, political, theological, historical, and legal dimensions of mining forefront extractivism as a project of world-making beyond its material implications. The move towards an epistemological framing of mining is supported by three dimensions of epistemological violence that help make sense of (1) the erasure of lived experiences, (2) Legal categories upholding fixed boundaries of knowledge, and (3) manipulating courts. After all, despite deaths, bodily injury, and dispossession, none of the government agencies or mining companies were held accountable.
The landslide has become a turning point in a decades-long struggle against mining in Cebu. In November 2018, residents of Talisay were evacuated due to potential landslides at the quarry site of QM Builders. In 2020, 4 workers died while 6 went missing in a landslide at Carmen Copper Corporation’s quarry in Toledo City. While focused on their individual struggles, mining-affected communities throughout Cebu organize together as they recognize the systemic issues at stake. These landslides reveal deeply rooted struggles against land privatization, corporate land grabbing, the political dimensions of the rule of law, and the vested, dynastic interests in capital accumulation by dispossession.
To commemorate the 7th anniversary of the landslide in Naga City, we highlight a few news features covering the situation as it unfolded in real-time.
We’re also sharing excerpts of the Judicial Affidavits of civil case no. TCV-2018-510 against Cemex, Apo, the local and provincial governments, and the MGB-VII.
Even if the rule of law rendered the residents’ voices invisible, we hear them.
Image 1: TCV-2018-510, Judicial Affidavit 4, 2018
"tanan gamit sa akong mama, mismo lawas sa ang akong duha ka manghod (cries) dili ma bayran ug sapi ang kinabuhi nila sir (All the possessions of my mother even the bodies of my two siblings.(cried). Their lives cannot be paid with money sir)”
Image 2: TCV-2018-510, Judicial Affidavit 5, 2018
"Akong ig-agaw na samad kay na igo sa bato. (My cousin was injured as he was hit by a rock)”
Image 3: TCV-2018-510, Judicial Affidavit 8, 2018
“Usa sa akong mga anak sir, akong kamanghuran, kay namatay kay natabunan sa yuta. (One of my children died during the incident sir)”
News Features
Abatayo, Rosalie O. and Inso, Futch Anthony. 2018. Environmentalists, relatives want guilty to be punished, demand stop to quarry operations in Naga; landslide death toll climbs to 60. September 25. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/195787/punish-the-guilty).
AP Archive. 2018. Massive Landslide Kills at Least 18 near Central Philippines Mountain. September 25. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVcPd0cfOxQ).
Facebook. n.d. Wake of the Naga City Landslide Victims. Facebook video. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.facebook.com/inquirerdotnet/videos/watch-wake-of-the-naga-city-landslide-victims/384707988731623/).
GMA Integrated News. 2018. BT: Forced Evacuation, Ipinatupad sa Mga Nakatira Malapit sa Landslide Area sa Naga City, Cebu. September 21. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcvI4Vgg8LQ).
Manila Bulletin. 2018. Mountain Partially Collapses in Naga City, Cebu. September 19. Retrieved September 20, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GikY2LIF-64).
Lacamiento, Grace Melanie I. and Manto, Mylen P. 2018. Mining stoppage in Cebu sought: P4.5 billion case filed over Naga landslide. November 8. Retrieved September 20, 2025 (https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/cebu-news/2018/11/08/1866875/mining-stoppage-cebu-sought-p45-billion-case-filed-over-naga-landslide).
Miasco, May B. 2018. Eco activists protest Naga quarry. December 21. Retrieved September 20, 2025 (https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/cebu-news/2018/12/21/1878775/eco-activists-protest-naga-quarry)
One News PH. 2018. Search and Rescue Ops Continue in Cebu Landslide. September 23. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMwGgWZrmFA).
PTP Philippines. n.d. Mga Biktima ng Landslide sa Naga, Cebu, Patuloy na Bumabagon at Lumalaban. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8g3coq).
PTV Philippines. 2020. “Retrieval Ops sa Anim Pang Minerong Natabunan ng Landslide sa Toledo City, Cebu, Itinigil Muna.” Retrieved Sept 20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxMrVxE8XoY
Rappler. 2018. 12 Killed, Dozens Missing in Naga, Cebu Landslide. September 19. Retrieved September 20, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su89q9ndaZQ).
Sunnexdesk. 2018. 60 Families in Talisay, Cebu to Be Evacuated. October 24. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/60-families-in-talisay-cebu-to-be-evacuated).
Sunnexdesk. 2018. Naga protesters barred from 'Ground Zero'. October 5. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/naga-protesters-barred-from-ground-zero).
SunStar Philippines. 2018. Naga, Cebu Landslide. September 20. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsMpoOfGoIc).
SunStar Philippines. 2018. CCTV footage of Naga, Cebu landslide. October 23. Retreived September 20, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXV7nJR26_8)
UNTV News and Rescue. 2018. UNTV: Why News (September 21, 2018) Part 1. September 21. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eyAhMn0L-o).
Vestil, Sjustin K. 2018. Plan to file case vs. Apo, Cemex, Naga gains support. Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/plan-to-file-case-vs-apo-cemex-naga-gains-support).
About
Jake Atienza is a transdisciplinary researcher who examines an epistemological framing of mining in the Bisayas, Philippines. He pays particular attention to a historically rooted impulse of world-making through various modalities: law, the state, political dynasties, and knowledge situated in and outside of these spaces and relations within the realms of epistemology, geography, and ecotheology. While his main focus is the island province of Cebu, Atienza’s interests span a broader archipelagic context across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He is a STANCe Fellow and a PhD student in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, in the United States.
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