4.1 Structural Barriers in Grassroots Disaster Committees
The critical synthesis of coastal disaster risk governance reveals that institutional capability building at the barangay tier does not automatically foster equitable community mobilization. As demonstrated in coastal assessments of local committees, structural challenges such as limited funding, insufficient training, and weak inter-stakeholder coordination persist, resulting in a systemic disconnect where committee technical competence fails to translate into active civic engagement ("Capabilities and the Community Engagement of Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction Management Committee," 2026). This operational disconnect aligns with broader institutional critiques indicating that while Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Committees serve as vital grassroots entities, persistent power imbalances, gender disparities, and socioeconomic stratifications continually hinder inclusive decision-making and genuine grassroots empowerment ("Community Empowerment and Disaster Resilience," 2023). Consequently, administrative capability interventions remain fundamentally insufficient when underlying social inequities and irregular citizen participation are left unaddressed within local policy agendas. A critical research gap persists regarding how decentralized coastal adaptation frameworks can systematically bridge formal institutional mandates with grassroots accountability mechanisms to resolve entrenched sociopolitical divides. Furthermore, this synthesis is subject to notable analytical limitations, as the evaluated scholarship relies primarily on descriptive institutional evaluations and localized committee surveys that fail to capture informal mutual-aid networks or longitudinal adaptation trajectories across diverse ecological settings. Addressing these structural barriers requires institutionalizing comprehensive capacity-building pathways that dismantle local power asymmetries and prioritize sustained community engagement in frontline disaster preparedness.