Publications

While there is a long and varied history of research on urban density, there is little work examining how high-density urbanism (HDU) is perceived and experienced amongst marginalized residents. Yet, paying attention to how residents understand density offers important insight into what density is and to how it matters for cities. Drawing on research in one of the world’s densest and most unequal cities, Manila, we develop the concept of “density textures” to address this gap. We examine density textures through three key inter-related themes: negotiating space, the unruly crowd, and material substrates. We conclude with reflections for future research.

Low-rise concrete buildings in the Philippines have been frequently damaged in past earthquakes, underscoring the need for effective seismic risk assessment. As a preliminary step toward distinguishing buildings with high seismic risk, simplified screening tools that do not require users to be specialists or expert structural engineers are commonly used, reserving the time and expense associated with full structural engineering assessments. This paper proposes an improved scoring framework and a corresponding rapid tool for screening called SCREEN, based on the probable loss that estimates the seismic risk of damage in low-rise concrete buildings in the Philippines using parameters that can be conveniently gathered by screeners who are novices, i.e., not structural engineers but have backgrounds in building design or construction. The simplified SCREEN scores were derived to approximate the results of analysis of computational models of 128 buildings with variations in seven parameters including potential ground shaking intensity, type of occupancy, shape of structure, vintage of structure, builder of structure, main material whether CHB or reinforced concrete, and width of walls between supports. For validation, SCREEN was compared with two locally developed seismic screening tools using a sample set of six (6) concrete hollow block buildings and eleven (11) reinforced concrete buildings, demonstrating high sensitivity in identifyng buildings needing engineering assessment. Meanwhile, its specificity in excluding low-risk buildings has not yet been as good. To minimize the risk of overlooking buildings with high seismic risk, this study prioritizes high sensitivity. It is recommended to test SCREEN further on a larger, diverse set of low-rise concrete buildings with independently assessed seismic risk.

This paper examines the dramaturgical strategies employed in Sa Gitna ng Digmaan ng mga Mahiwagang Nilalang Laban sa Sangkatauhan, a play presented as part of the eco-theatre project Mga Anak ng Unos in the Philippines. Sa Gitna ng Digmaan's connection to eco-dramaturgy is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and practices, especially in how Filipinos perceive and experience mythologies both physically and emotionally, since the myths of the Philippine archipelago inspire the play. Myths and similar stories are filled with metaphors and meaning. They show how cultural communities and indigenous peoples have historically managed the complexities of the Earth. These stories are powerful because they resonate within a cultural context and are considered sacred by the societies in which they are told. The dramaturgical strategies aim to show the audience that the current global environmental crisis is a pressing call for collective, positive action, emphasizing the importance of engaging with Indigenous peoples. The paper envisions an eco-dramaturgy in which theatre practitioners shift from viewing Indigenous peoples as subjects to thinking with them. This idea is based on the belief that Indigenous knowledge and practices also shape climate-disaster preparedness and response strategies, given Indigenous communities’ close relationship with the environment.

This paper examines the dramaturgical strategies employed in Sa Gitna ng Digmaan ng mga Mahiwagang Nilalang laban sa Sangkatauhan, a play presented as part of the eco-theatre project Mga Anak ng Unos in the Philippines. Sa Gitna ng Digmaan's connection to eco-dramaturgy is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and practices, especially in how Filipinos perceive and experience mythologies both physically and emotionally, since the myths of the Philippine archipelago inspire the play. Myths and similar stories are filled with metaphors and meaning. They show how cultural communities and Indigenous Peoples have historically managed the complexities of the Earth. These stories are powerful because they resonate within a cultural context and are considered sacred by the societies in which they are told. The dramaturgical strategies aim to show the audience that the current global environmental crisis is a pressing call for collective, positive action, emphasizing the importance of engaging with Indigenous Peoples. The paper envisions an eco-dramaturgy where theatre practitioners shift from viewing Indigenous Peoples as subjects to thinking with them. This idea is based on the belief that Indigenous knowledge and practices also shape climate-disaster preparedness and response strategies, given Indigenous communities' close relationship with the environment.

In the last decade, there has been a surge of linguistic landscape studies conducted in the Philippines using varying theoretical and methodological approaches. Local studies, for example, have intersected linguistic landscapes with gender and sexuality, political identity construction and positioning, heritage tourism, language politics and memory studies. While the sociolinguistic subdiscipline is still in its nascent stage, its breadth and diversity of study locales hint at a potentially fruitful field of interest in the country. However, what exactly are the recurrent themes in Philippine linguistic landscape studies? What are the methodological trends that underpin these? And, finally, how can linguistic landscape studies in the country better reflect Philippine social realities and experiences? In this article, I attempt to answer these questions by mapping out the current themes and trends in Philippine linguistic landscape studies.

Hindi maikakaila ang mga hirap at hamon sa akademikong gawain ng mga mag-aaral sa kolehiyo. Higit na nagiging mabigat na suliranin ito para sa mga mag-aaral kung may dinadala rin silang sikolohikal na kapansanan na humahadlang sa kanilang pagkatuto. Nais bigyang-diin sa papel na ito ang halaga ng akademikong akomodasyon sa UP Diliman. Isang konsultatibong talakayan ang isinagawa sa mga piling mag-aaral at mga piling tagapagbigay ng serbisyong panlusog-isip sa UP Diliman (miyembro ng UPD Psychosocial Services, Total Inclusive Environment for UP program, at Office of Counseling and Guidance) upang mabuksan ang usapin tungkol sa paghiling at pagpapatupad ng akademikong akomodasyon sa unibersidad. Nilalayon nitong masuri ang kanilang mga nararanasang benepisyo at balakid tungkol sa usaping ito at nang makapagbigay ng mga rekomendasyon sa pagpapatibay ng akademikong akomodasyon. Apat na temang may kaugnayan sa benepisyo ng akomodasyon ang nangingibabaw sa mga kuwento ng mag-aaral at tagapagbigay ng serbisyo: kaalwanan, kasamahan, kahandaan, at kinabukasan. Tatlong tema naman ang sumasalamin sa mga hamon sa paghiling at pagpapatupad ng akomodasyon: kakulangan sa kaalaman, nagbabanggaang paniniwala at pagpapahalaga, at kakulangan sa pagsubaybay at ebalwasyon. Sinusulong ng pag-aaral na ito ang pagpapadaloy ng ginhawa para sa mga mag-aaral na may sikolohikal na kapansanan at ang pagbibigay-diin sa papel ng unibersidad hindi lang bilang tagapagtaguyod ng de-kalidad na edukasyon ngunit bilang isa ring inklusibo at mapagkalingang komunidad.

Thailand is one of the largest rice exporters in the world, with rice production playing a crucial role in its agricultural sector. However, the current model of industrialized rice production, driven by the Green Revolution, has led to significant challenges, including soil degradation, economic burdens on farmers, and threats to food sovereignty. This chapter examines the limitations of the dominant food security paradigm, which prioritizes food availability and economic access but overlooks cultural and ecological concerns. It highlights how Thai civil society organizations, particularly the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (SAF), the Alternative Agriculture Foundation (AAF), and BioThai, are advocating for food sovereignty as an alternative framework. Through focus group discussions and case studies, the chapter explores how these organizations build networks, engage in policy advocacy, and promote sustainable agricultural practices. Their efforts emphasize grassroots mobilization, research collaboration, and public education to challenge industrialized agriculture. By reclaiming traditional farming knowledge and fostering solidarity, these movements present a viable path toward an ecologically sustainable and socially just food system in Thailand.

War – destructive and bloody as it may be – has nevertheless been discursively framed as a valiant and noble deed by powerful state institutions and forces through political speeches and legislature. In recent years, however, the multimodal turn in critical discourse analysis saw the rise of war studies through the lens of war monuments and how these selectively frame war as a social practice. Using Abousnnouga and Machin’s three-dimensional social semiotics framework, this paper explores how semiotic resources employed in the Marawi Siege monument in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery), Philippines, recontextualize the Marawi Siege by recontextualizing representations of government forces from violent contexts and situating them instead in sanitised contexts of humanitarian work – all the while (visually) silencing the plight of the Maranao people during the Siege. It further revealed that semiotic resources were used to weave a particular frame of narrative in the discourse of war through the celebratory, symbolic, and somewhat propagandistic narrative of the government and military, all of which may have been employed in order to support and provide evidence for its own institutional legitimacy and power.

Local literature on abstract landscapes has not only been cursory and sparse but has also drawn dominantly from abstraction’s tendency to underscore the modernist idea of the individual. As a result, these works have rarely been discussed in relation to matters beyond the self—such as others in society and ecology. This is striking, as literature on landscape painting in general often render the art historical category in relation to humanity’s links with nature and other human groups. In an effort to address these gaps, this study uses the concept of spirituality in examining Glenn Bautista’s abstraction, articulated through his delicate forms of landscapes. While spirituality is known to emphasize the person’s self-reflexivity, it shall serve as a lens in surfacing the role of the artist’s practice in his search for the sacred and his understanding of the entanglement of humanity and the environment, specifically in the context of ecological destruction through the theological notion of eschatology. In the process, this study will forward the concept of landscape not as a genre, but as a medium, employed by the artist to understand, construct, and present himself a human in relation with other humans, the Divine, and the planet.

In this essay, Tiatco and Javier critically annotate and document Jose Estrella’s important works, making her an important figure in contemporary Philippine performance practice. Tiatco and Javier employ performative writing strategies to outline and explore Estrella’s performance works. Tiatco and Javier provide a glimpse of Estrella’s creative mind by making her “talk” about her works, particularly her dramaturgical purviews (devise, themes, and directorial principles). This way, Estrella becomes a co-author of the essay and not just the subject. The essay also provides a reflexive narration, embodied language, and sensory details of Estrella’s work to evoke the lived experience of her productions. As detailed in the piece, Estrella's works feature the precarity of human life and see the individual’s vulnerability as a condition of the contemporary world. Another important feature of her theatre is the presentation and figuration of the stranger – the peculiar, the different, the other. The essay presents such a claim by illustrating the performative experiences of encountering Estrella's theatre works. The goal of the essay is to challenge traditional modes of documentation and offer an alternative way of engaging and representing performance events. As the essay features, the use of performative writing has blurred the boundaries between theory-driven analysis and practice, incorporating creative and experimental elements into scholarly discourse. It also foregrounds the embodied and affective dimensions of performances (i.e., the theatres of José Estrella), which may be overlooked in more conventional academic writing.

This paper interrogates the notion of “correct English” in the Philippines by looking at its colonial genealogy and historical entrenchment and by situating it as an epistemic construct produced through American imperial education, specifically through one of the key tools of mass subjugation: the colonial English textbook. Focusing on English Fundamentals for Filipino Students (1932) by Jaranilla, Potts, and Manalo as a case study, I argue that such texts functioned as mechanisms of colonial control and social engineering (May, 1984), one that is mediated through “proper” language use and the subsequent naturalization of American English as the normative standard of English in the country. Furthermore, through a discourse-historical reading of this textbook, I also trace how categories of “correct” and “incorrect” English were mobilized to index and sustain colonially induced hierarchies of race, knowledge, and civility. Such pedagogical measures, in effect, revealed how the colonial English textbook operationalized systems of exclusion to codify the American variety as the legitimate and “correct” English, thereby demonstrating that “language correctness” in the Philippines is not merely a pedagogical convention but a colonial formation embedded in broader regimes of epistemic power.

In Decoloniality and language scholarship – a critical intervention, Rambukwella and Zavala identify three emerging challenges in the ongoing theorization and application of the term ‘decoloniality’ in current language scholarship: the assertion of an alterity untouched by modernity, the creation of new binaries despite efforts to deconstruct them, and the decontextualization and depoliticization of decoloniality. In this response article, we look into how these challenges play out in the Philippine context. Examining our own engagements with decolonial thinking and practice in academic circles in the country with particular focus on the field of English language scholarship, we find the same problematic trends and tendencies, while also observing that there are specific iterations of these issues in Philippine academia and in contemporary decolonial campaigns initiated outside of the academe. It is important to note that while decolonial thinking and efforts are not new in Philippine academic conversations and in the popular imagination, it remains a new, or perhaps an under-studied or under-utilized, approach and practice in applied/sociolinguistic scholarship, especially as it concerns English. With this broad comparison in mind, our response to the article is divided into three sections. In the first section, we provide a brief historicization of the trajectory of decolonial thinking in the academe after the second world war, right after the Philippines was granted independence by the United States in 1946. In the second section, we focus on English language scholarship and trace the developments in the field, underscoring what we have observed as a movement from a postcolonial position towards a path that offers more possibilities for decolonization. In the third and final section, we end with the idea of wariness as a useful emotion and disposition with which to make sense of the present decolonial moment that we are experiencing. This wariness has allowed us to, first, examine our own fraught position as English teachers and scholars and the tensions this creates in our attempts at decolonizing English Studies in the country; and second, recognize possibilities of decolonial and decolonizing thought, acts, and practices that are not so named but do the work of such. We call these unnamed decolonialities. Overall, we believe that the decolonial project in the field of English language scholarship can only be an ever-continuing and ever-evolving one as the project of disrupting existing and emerging power structures associated with the teaching and study of English in the Philippines in the hope of replacing them with more equitable and socially just ones never ends.

In this engagement, I explore two ways to appreciate entangled areas in Southeast Asia through the urban, influenced by relational orientations to spatiality drawn from work in science and technology studies, assemblage urbanism and worlding cities. First, I survey how scholarship on Asian and Southeast Asian urbanisms have long reproduced but have also recently challenged the enduring territorial legacies of area thinking, moving from a view of stable, territorially-bound categories of space as basis for comparative analysis to one of movements, fluidity and interconnections. These shifts carry potentials for developing conceptual vectors oriented towards the coming together of socio-material contingencies that constitute urban areas. Second, I show how the periphery—a key spatial category that pertains to a specific urban site—may be examined as an effect of assemblage. A focus on emergence, contingency and undecidable trajectories destabilizes the fixity of spatial categories as basis for understanding urban areas. I demonstrate how an approach to entangled areas and their material itineraries highlights a multitude of practices, encounters, and co-existence that results in non-predetermined spatial outcomes. Such an approach to urban areas in/of Southeast Asia presents a different starting point for making areal comparisons while being more attuned to the multiple and generative possibilities in space.

This study unsettles and complicates our understanding of the language provisions stipulated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, specifically Article XIV, sections 6–9, by looking underneath its surface and calling into question the unequal and racialized (post)colonial matrices and relations of power that had informed its drafting and development during the 1986 Philippine Constitutional Commission. Through a critical discursive and historiographical perspective, I argued that conditions of coloniality were articulated during the language provision deliberations of the Commission and were mobilized on two axes, namely, the racialization of language through imperial amnesia and the conflation of neoliberal and linguistic entrepreneurial discourses, both of which perpetuate the effects and legacies of colonialism on language policy-making, teaching, and education even after the period of formal colonization.