Public opinion in disaster contexts is shaped not only by official communication but also by the cultural, relational, and epistemological frameworks through which communities interpret, trust, and act upon risk information. This study examines how local stakeholders in San Luis, Aurora, Philippines negotiate disaster messages within overlapping systems of institutional communication and community-grounded knowledge. Using a qualitative case study design involving interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis, the research explores how residents, barangay officials, and local disaster actors interpret warnings through Filipino communicative values such as bayanihan (collective solidarity), pakikiramdam (shared sensitivity), kapwa (shared identity and interdependence), and spiritual faith. Findings reveal that disaster communication effectiveness depended not solely on technological dissemination or institutional authority, but on communicative legitimacy grounded in cultural intelligibility, relational trust, participatory engagement, and the convergence between scientific advisories and lived community experience. While formal disaster messaging frequently followed technocratic and standardized communication models, communities continued to rely on localized environmental cues, vernacular interpretations, and kinship-based communication networks in shaping preparedness decisions and collective response. From these dynamics, the study advances the SALIGAN framework, a seven-pillar model consisting of strategic communication modes, aligning to cultural and linguistic contexts, local participation, integrated knowledge co-creation, guidance through feedback, anchoring in governance, and networking and replication. Rather than positioning indigenous knowledge as supplementary to scientific systems, the framework demonstrates how scientized disaster communication may emerge through negotiated integration between institutional protocols and community epistemologies. In doing so, the study contributes to decolonizing communication scholarship by reframing disaster communication as a participatory and culturally mediated process of public opinion formation, offering insights for strengthening resilience, inclusivity, and communicative trust across disaster-prone communities in Asia and the Global South.
Robbie Jan Vincent T. Buelo (Fri,) studied this question.