Tulong: An Articulation of Politics in the Christian Philippines (original) (raw)

Hidden transcript from "below" in rural politics of the Philippines

Southeast Asian Studies (Kyoto), 2012

This paper argues that ordinary people often contest rather than submit to thepowerful elites to gain material interests and political favoritism. Ordinary peopleare both shrewd and crtcal n makng udgments and evaluatons on poltcans aswell as the (unequal) relation of powers. Based on fieldwork interviews in thehilippines, this paper identifies the perception of (local) politics from ordinarypeople’s pont of vew n a seemngly mundane poltcal envronment. If the poltcaleconomic imperative of tulong, or help, is decoded to include its social meanings,functions, and cultural connotation, it reveals the Janus-facedness of patron-clienttes that allows for a negotaton of power relatons between clents and patrons.

Book Review Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture, 2019

As Filipinos are in search for solutions to their nation's problems of corruption, poverty, inequality, and different forms of injustice, Kusaka's Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor takes a step back from seeking remedies to these problems and reexamines how these issues are commonly articulated. The book investigates moral politics, a discursive framework, to come to terms with how citizens form their understanding of social problems through their notions of good and evil. Under moral politics' frame, citizens view their nation's maladies as caused by morally wrong actions done by an individual (e.g. public leader) or a group of people (e.g. street vendors). By grasping how moral politics works, Kusaka's text shows how it prevents Filipinos from attaining significant social improvements. There are many notable themes in Kusaka's work, but this review highlights only two points: first, Kusaka's examination of how neoliberalism takes effect in the country, especially in view of the shaping of the subjects, and second, his examination of how moral politics contributes or deters the development of democracy in the Philippines by identifying how moral politics prevents Filipinos from grasping the real issues. By emphasizing both insights, Kusaka not only shows how moral politics is formed but also extends the argument by showing that this kind of politics has a profound effect on the community.

Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor

Planning Theory

Sr. through peaceful demonstrations. The Philippines suddenly became an international darling of democracy, inspiring some social movements elsewhere in their struggle against authoritarianism. A decade and a half later, in 2001 the Filipino middle-class ousted the populist president Joseph Estrada after a series of political rallies on the same street where the 1986 protests took place-Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Yet, three months after, another mass of peoplemostly urban poor-congregated on EDSA demanding the re-installment of the deposed Estrada. These events came to be called as 'EDSA People Power' revolts. As EDSA3 was taking place, the statement below circulated as a text message: EDSA 1: free the nation from a dictator. EDSA 2: free the nation from a thief. EDSA 3: free lunch, dinner, breakfast and snacks too… let's go. (p. 109) This sarcastic note captures the dominant EDSA narrative among the Filipino middle-class. It reflects a loaded judgment on political acts in a highly unequal Philippine society. Why is this so? Why has the erstwhile darling of democracy seemed to have fragmented so fast? What accounts for the deeply dismissive view of EDSA3? Kusaka's book-Moral Politics in the Philippines-addresses these questions and other issues engulfing the Philippines since the historic EDSA1 uprising.

Religion and the Public Sphere: The Indisponible Niche of Political Theology in the Philippines

2012

Arguments on the role of religion in the public sphere have been recently polemical. The apparent intermittent fading and resurgence of religion in the international (political) arena gave rise to the quandary of the place and extent of its theological engagement. In Habermas's premise, the public sphere of a democratic society must be open to all, pave the avenue for an imperative inclusion and exigent justification of religion's role and involvement. As Craig Calhoun puts it: "…we endanger the future of the democratic polity if we cannot integrate (religion) into the workings of public reason." The emergence of a reasoned public sphere is a response to the perplexing influence of religion and the political conflicts it bears. This paper attempts to elucidate the indisponible place and role of religion in the Philippines' public sphere - the recognition of the force of religion as a bipolar vehicle in remediating or exacerbating social-political conflicts and ...

Religion, Culture and Politics in the Philippines

Anpere, 2007

This essay addresses two questions with regard to the contemporary Philippines: the question of political violence and the question of status and hierarchy or, as some would have it, class. In recent years I have done field work in and around Manila and in the provinces of Laguna and Quezon about the use of amulets or antíng-antíng in martial rituals for making men's bodies invulnerable, and also on practices concerned with the disposal of the dead. I will suggest that the ritual use of amulets through which Filipino men typically seek to protect themselves from violence signifies a generalised fear of violence. I will also suggest that such rituals of invulnerability transform violence, vulnerability and invulnerability into spiritual problems that can only be overcome through spiritual means. This is to be regarded as a problem: political violence in the Philippines will not be stopped by prayer or by a tattoo or a talisman. Secondly, I will argue that if we want to understand Filipino society with its hierarchies and status and class relationships, we can find ready-made 'maps' of such relations in graveyards. In other words, the geography of death provides an important insight into the ordinarily hidden structuring of society in the Philippines. As such, I will argue that the increasing tendency of middle-class or 'C' class Filipinos to choose cremation at death and for the ashes to be stored not in a graveyard but in a columbarium suggests a desire to escape hierarchy, but also the political impotence of the middleclass in that for this class the problem of hierarchy in the Philippines can only be resolved in death: the issue of inequality simply cannot be confronted in reality.