Victims, criminals, and survivors – these are dominant ways in which the media portrays communities affected by disasters. These portrayals are not benign. They present a deficient form of citizenship that reduces communities to disempowered subjects whose agency can only be realised with humanitarian responses or disciplinary action by the state. In this article, we make a case for portraying disaster-affected communities as political agents who assert their status as co-equal citizens bearing ideas and grievances, capable of justifying their views, and have a stake in shaping the course of post-disaster response. We argue that this portrayal is not only normatively desirable but politically possible. We draw on the case of People Surge – a grassroots alliance formed in the Philippines in 2013 in the aftermath of the world’s strongest storm.

受害者，罪犯和幸存者–这些是媒体描述受灾社区的主要方式。这些描述不是良性的。他们表现出一种缺乏公民身份的形式，使社区沦为无权的主体，只有通过国家的人道主义对策或纪律处分才能实现其权力。在本文中，我们将把受灾社区描述为政治代理人，他们宣称自己是同等公民，具有思想和不满，能够证明自己的观点，并在塑造灾后响应过程中具有利益。我们认为，这种描述不仅在规范上是可取的，而且在政治上也是可能的。我们以“人口激增”为例。2013年，菲律宾在全球最强烈的风暴之后成立了一个基层联盟。