Publications

This article critiques the komedya vis-à-vis its institutionalization as national theatre form and proposes a cosmopolitan alternative in the critique. It argues that the imposition of a nationalist perspective in the reading the form falls into the trap of territoriality and “othering” because of its Roman Catholic and Tagalog-centric orientations. The cosmopolitan critique is necessary because it embodies a middle-path alternative to the essentializing and territorializing character of popular nationalism and the anarchy of pluralism. The discussion of cosmopolitanism comes from the irony that komedya could have offered a cosmopolitan possibility when Filipino artists began its indigenization. The efficacy of this possibility was overpowered by methodological nationalism based on the hegemony of the center (The Greater Manila Area) and its central religion – Catholicism. Thus, the komedya was contextualized as a Catholic theatre form and strengthened a particular hostility against non-Catholics, especially the Muslims.

Commodification of kidneys has become a new locus for co-optation of the human body, bioethics, and legal standards on organ donation and transplantation in the biocapitalist era. Neoliberal policies operate through a new constitutionalism, which opens the healthcare system of developing countries like the Philippines to transplant tourism’s promises of huge economic gains. This article explores how the human rights of most male providers from poor communities who sell their kidneys are seriously compromised by the inconsistent and inadequate rules governing organ donation, transplantation and bioethics. I have employed textual analysis of the existing Philippine laws on organ donation and transplantation; biographical narrations of kidney sellers from Baseco, Manila; and key-informant interviews with organizations opposing organ commodification in this area to explore how the bodies of the poor are treated as “organ banks for the better off” in an era when biotechnology promises longer lives to those who can pay. As a way forward, I suggest that the actors involved in the organ donation and transplantation process should share the responsibility to address the social injustices associated with it.

Ang aklat ay tungkol sa halagahan at aral na halaw mula sa pamamaraan at kilos-kapayapaan ng kababaihang Talaandig. Mga salaysay ng mga Inay Malinandang, mga nanay na kumikilos para sa kapayapaan ang naging daan na nagbukas sa mundo, pananaw, at halagahan ng malawak na salitang kapayapaan ng Talaandig. Inilalahad sa aklat na ito ang mga resolusyon, kautusan, at batas mula sa United Nations at Kagawaran ng Edukasyon ng Pilipinas tungkol sa ugnayan ng kilos-kapayapaan ng kababaihan, paglalahad at pagsusuri ng isang halimbawang gabay sa pagtuturo ng Edukasyong Pangkapayapaan at pagtanaw sa kahulugan at nilalaman ng Edukasyong Pangkapayapaan sa bansa. Isinama ang mga aral at halagahang halaw mula sa prosesong kapayapaan ng mga Inay Malinandang ng Talaandig. Naglalaman rin ito ng balangkas para sa pagtuturo at pitong modyul sa pag-aaral ng edukasyong pangkapayapaan para sa pagsasanay ng mga gurong magtuturo ng edukasyong pangkapayapaang ng K-12 sa bansa.

Recent events have brought public attention to the continuing problem of gender-based dehumanization and violence against women in Philippine society. These include the documented sale of a t-shirt framing rape as a “snuggle with a struggle” in a large department store chain, the staging of a fashion show by the major retail brand featuring a male actor pulling a female model on an animal leash, and most recently, the violent death of a transgender woman from Olongapo City. In this resolution, we articulate the position of our national professional organization of Filipino psychologists, psychometricians, psychological researchers, and allied mental health professionals on the pressing problem of gender-based violence and its associated harms to mental health and well-being, especially for women.

Mainstream sociological theories of technology tend to use the society | technology distinction, which is an extension of the anthropocentric human | nonhuman distinction. This article goes beyond essentialist humanism in developing a conceptual outline for a systems theory of technology. The basic proposition of this article is that technology is a functional subsystem of modern society that observes the world of tools, techniques and applications using the code state-of-the-art | obsolete. Distinguishing an object as state-of-the-art indicates its currency and creates expectations of future obsolescence, which drives the system’s function of stimulating society’s inventive capacity. Taking a systems approach resolves the theoretically unproductive technology vs. society debate on causal primacy, and allows for discussions on sociological problems of technology to move forward with a fresh perspective. While the article uses Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory as its backbone, it breaks from Luhmann’s concept of technology being in the environment of society, and proposes instead that technology is, by itself, a subsystem of society.

The response of the bird community in the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus was evaluated before and after the university embarked on major infrastructure and landscape development in 2006-2008. Surveys using the Jokimäki walk were made monthly from 2004-2006 prior to development and from 2007-2010 after development in three 22-25 ha plots, i.e., 1) College of Science (CS), 2) Academic Oval (OV) and 3) Open Fields (OP), representing biophysical development gradient. Diversity indices before and after redevelopment were compared. Principal components analysis (PCA) and Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression were done to determine how the dominant species responded to change over time. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow Passer montanus and the Yellow vented bulbul Pycnonotus goiaiver experienced declines in all plots but most significantly in the CS plot which experienced the most infrastructure development. A MANOVA was used to determine if the declines in Passer and Pycnonotus populations had an effect on other species in the CS plot. MANOVA results suggest that the declines are significant with the increase in populations of the flycatcher Gerygone and the ground dove Geopelia suggesting ecological replacement of the once numerous species.

Magazine Description

This essay reflects on globalization as a phenomenon that connects and influences the world’s socio-cultural and political spheres, similar to how some academics explore the nature of the global. In particular, the essay interrogates how globalization is mediated in the theatre. The motivation in the inquiry is based on a presumption that theatre artists are also actively participating in defining what globalization means. At the same time, it comes from an assumption that theatre artists are also actively performing what it means to be global. Many artists engage with the global by either collaborating with artists of different nationalities or using globalization as a central theme in their theatre works. In reflecting on globalization, the essay analyzes Chris Martinez’s monodrama Welcome to IntelStar, staged at the Studio Theatre of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2006. This play proposes that globalization is a trap. In this alignment of globalization and “the trap,” the entrapment brings forth a dichotomy: the global and the local. This dichotomy is strongly imagined in the staging of IntelStar, where the local is presented as the prey or the victim in the entrapment. But in the f inal analysis, the performance mediates the sociality between the local and the global and ultimately performs an entanglement of the local and the global as a reference to an attraction and repulsion to globalization. However, in such treatment of globalization, the Studio Theatre also becomes a model of the trap where artists become the hunters and the audience members, the victims.

The paper is a conceptual inquiry on the later Wittgenstein’s approach to ethics through an account of how the method of language-games applies to research on the bystander effect. Using the Kitty Genovese murder and the Wang Yue hit-and-run as sample cases, I cite findings on how the bystander effect involves confusion on action due to the ambiguity of the situation. I argue that the presence of this ambiguity is consistent with Wittgenstein’s view on the indeterminacy of language and that the method of language-games offers a solution via an approach of engaged reflection rather than abstract deliberation. The method of language-games deters the bystander effect by establishing a sensitivity that puts us in a better position to clarify and take the perspective of others. Emphasis on acquiring this sensitivity is significantly similar to how closeness and social learning facilitate social courage. I conclude by explaining how the method of language-games leads to a critical conception of agency that is fundamentally connected to a sense of the other and how closeness and social learning serve as concrete illustrations of how Wittgenstein’s method of language-games becomes applicable in practical ethics.