I Made 'It', What Now?
To be born is to be radical. I'm scared, emboldened, truthful, so I'll say it anyway. This is my personal rant and look-back / historical + political analysis / manifesto all-in-1. Shall we?
Congratulations to the guy named Rom, since you have completed years of expansive and inherently constructed education, I ask you this. Can your jumble make the uninterested mumble?. Incapable yet, as the world is entering a new era, such hellish uncertainty as before, you are forced to begin action.
But you are not ready to begin…because you need to open up first.
And to you, reader, I say, a mouth revealing comes not unscathed. And I will pay the price for speaking, I know, God knows what the first consequences.
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I. Memoirs from a Battered Young Rom…
I open this letter with a portion that is a can of complementing and contradicting worms. But I note that….even if ties will be cut and risk everything if I believe what people describe me politically, it is my true political self.
Hell, can I fucking say that since I will pull from my initial graduation letter, I feel constricted about the theming of it. Why? I was deliberately considering that framing it overtly political will certainly spark susceptibility to how the landmine of free speech is here in Australia1 (even more so in the Philippines)2.
But fuck ‘em rules, years out of academic and social hard work from a young age led to me being inspired to learn in public and semi-private education (which is truly hard on the circumstances allowed by the Filipino system). Until my Dad’s financial capability allowed me to achieve higher education at last, that brought me the framework I truly needed.3
I do say that I’ll need to pay that forward, now that I have proven my worth to him, by successfully winning his long-standing gamble against his siblings, childhood neighbours, and sensationalist friends and relatives (but I’ll critique his lamentable political beliefs in general, later, now that I have grown and learned enough to be my own).4
This world needs more radical and pragmatic optimism, and optimistically, dare I say words that I do not mince.
What I am now today, was built from the oppression at home, in academia, and the world around me. I cannot seem to fail to notice the wrong in anything, maybe because of my neurodivergence (yes, I have high-functioning ADHD), perhaps because I was so tired of seeing the imbalance in the power dynamics everywhere I largely sense.5
I was a run-of-the-mill victim. The weirdo. The social outcast. The nerd. The ‘wild’ child. Not anymore, checkmates, neurotypicals. And I will never forget and forgive in my heart, those who wronged me since childhood, high school, university and even today, but I’ll use your “evil” to divert wrongdoing to construct a better future.
No single action I made was critiqued and spliced move-by-move than the ordinary kid or an ordinary teenage boy, and more shocking, as a man with a nearly grown frontal lobe. To everyone, I was something to be shunned, moulded and hidden. Now, those interrogative ways have slimmed to mere speculations which have stood the test of time and karma. One can say that through creativity, I felt more peaceful when I grew up than when I was young. I was forced to be a grown man when I was supposed to be a child.
My extended family remained moderately poor despite being just well-off in their past, as they repeatedly told in family histories, and now still reeling from my Dad's loving promises only to his mom (love you Grandma Emer), as his deviation from his parents’ wishes to remain in the homeland, was all but only the assurance of me and my sister’s future.
And yet with their beliefs coinciding with their status today, you can feel the disappointment in my words. I could not react but incessantly laughed and was stricken with sadness at the same time. Time and time again, they got too many favours and yet nothing comes out of it until now, not even a change of scenery. Shame.
So far, my only resolution is myself and God, in the heavens above. Even with the caustic relationship between the Catholic Church’s controversial colonial past and questionable regression with other progressive factors in the Philippines, their Sunday preaching still sticks to its interpretative freedom and those mouldable contemporary views on morality, politics and the proliferation of the poor, I have largely devoted the good of my actions and confessed sins through the ideals of Christian morality. In all honesty, the saints who I adore and the Virgin Mary are my witnesses, but I am truly human, I did my way and somehow, after all of this mess, it shaped me. Now, God, I prayed everything for this time to happen, but I have since asked to push me forward, to do what I want, far from the sways of my own family and now into the sake of everyone else too. Proudness.
But enough of my self-pity, I should have spoken in-depth now about the politics of my graduation letter.
II. Original Correspondences by a Fledgling Political Rom…
Act I: The Bad, The Corrupt and The Casually Shady.
Ever since I was born just short of a year after 9/11, the world has been rapidly proving how the ‘end of history’ is repeatedly wrong as theorised.
The almanacks, the dictionary-like general info hubs, and the guidebooks I was reading in grade school were an affront to a utopian delusion that the Western world had built, which came crashing down even before my age completed a full set of hands.
The rotating blackouts were a childhood feature in my life too, caused by the Asian financial crisis’ impact on our country’s energy spending power. That meant something symbolically, corruption lacked the country, literal power needed to work within its grasp.
As the first world leaders I know, Arroyo and Bush were seen to be presidential chum-chums. I heard true stories that Filipino troops were going from the Middle East and pulling out after because a Filipino overseas worker was kidnapped, and I did not realise why it was wrong, we followed the troop order from the US Pres. Bush in the first place till I was 12 when I read a now-old opinion piece online.
But I somehow understood the experience of the fucking GFC. While I was six/seven, and it is actually weird to know a child presciently believes that his father, uncles and aunts would be out of their jobs because Asian countries were wise to shutter away the effects of rippling global recession. And so did they. Despite the job shutdowns, the Filipino economy survived it, by a narrow margin.
As an effect of misrepresentation of trust and grave misconduct far from her sound and landmark policies (as any obvious Filipino politician would be), former President Gloria Arroyo (now a faux-liberal, right-leaning kingmaker) was replaced by another liberal stalwart, President Benigno Aquino III, the son of the democracy icon, the late President Corazon Aquino.
I strongly believe this was the last showboating of mainstream liberal power in Philippine politics, of democratic power per se, in which Filipinos had truly and correctly brought someone to the wooden Throne, with moral and constitutional knowledge.
Why? The late President Benigno III greatly restored the modern economic wealth of the country, but had too focused on gaining world recognition, which stemmed further liberal criticism of human rights, it was not at the same rate of retaining the lost job statistics it paid from the GFC prior.
Therefore, the idleness of tangible change or the fallacy of passing policies that end up staying on paper was irritating to the average Juan and Maria de la Cruzes. For them, crime was inherently more present in the streets, corruption was justified, and poverty slowly but surely rose.
The moral kindness and moderated notion of Filipino liberalism had not been so effective for far too long and will soon be deemed ‘outdated’, despite being like a peculiar diadem, many Filipinos laud PNoy’s “good citizen” image when he was the commander-in-chief.
So… despite this public heel turn to a new “alternative” to liberalism, it flowered two more visions of a rugged future should it return to power, or so I was seeing it too happily. As those two promising visions yet slowly reached the light into the future, a far cry from what everyone wished it to be, I was then slowly disassociating my optimism for Philippine politics because I knew something wrong was about to turn the page. I needed to shift my political belief to something more critical (mind you, I was still in my early teens then).
So it was Pres. Rodrigo Duterte is to be crowned, a new name in national politics, one to be heard by the world, not in the policies you would seem to hear from a country called a basin of democracy in the Asian diaspora.
He started his rule, with the bloody War on Drugs, an ironclad focus-cum-solution against the normalcy of crime across the Islands (as his policy states that it was supposedly for the full “eradication” of crime, it was a pre-requisite to accelerating slowed socio-economic growth). In the aftermath, discord and chaos ensued by the State.
Focused on the yet-to-be-truthed dynamics of “Duterte-brand power”, the drags of this nation spread, shaped what could be the framework of modern Philippine fascism, soon as it hypnotised the ordinary Filipino. As the real horrors of the “Davao Death Squad” started to be translated into the fanaticism of the Duterte Diehard Supporters, an era of misinformation and disinformation surged to reshape the image of his predecessor and the history of liberal governance and shape the Marcosian return to power instead.
I was already open upon hearing this far-reaching corruption since I was a kid, but now, in the worst case imaginable, it has every facet of Filipino sociopolitical culture, everyone’s elders and adults are being blinded and coerced with illusory economic opportunity silenced to their claim of power, sometimes people reflecting them by abusing personal political capabilities too. But the point of no return, how my moving radicalisation crossed the line, I cannot attribute to denying through everyone’s suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic. I must speak.
The Philippines never learned the lessons of its post-Marcosian past. One because the brand of Filipino politics was its superfixation to what I could call 3Ps: personality, popularity, and pageantry, a feature of kleptocracy, kakistocracy, and oligarchy, burgeoning symptoms of a borrowed system from its imperial control (our Philippine Constitution simulates the United States Constitution). No longer the educated knowledge is needed to discern political accomplishments and even basic human morality is grounded upon the delusion of a society done right with a iron hand.
“Di bale na mahirap, basta’t namumuhay ng marangal” co-exists with “Ahh, si [ politician X] ang kayang sumagot diyan, kasi ang kailangan natin sa gobyerno, kamay na bakal, dahil laganap ang [issue Y], dahil palpak at inidoro ang [political party Z]”, without even knowing the truths and the ramifications.
I always joke that Machiavelli would roll in his grave knowing that The Prince was adapted into a large-scale simulation, especially a hardly independent country like the Philippines, more so annoying to compare than other nation-states whose corruption is more sophisticated than straight-up evil.
But to console my liberal beliefs at that moment, I believe that a higher power, as a sign of divine retribution, slipped Madame Maria Leonor Robredo into the fray, to the #2 spot, to counter-balance this ensuing tyranny, something that will shape my current socio-political vision of my homeland’s future, more than on her backstory later.
Act II. No Point in Shutting Your Eyes Back, Even A Child Can See That.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, his ambitions to siphon further political, economic and sociocultural power and stifle dissent in his emergency pandemic powers largely opined my existing beliefs and supercharged my desire to speak against the system. In this stage, even in the sense of the home, the State was succeeding in instilling fear and gross obedience. My extended family, all but me and my sister and some cousins believed against this futile grasp to power, out of disgust at their fanaticism. But then it was just the start.
Mid-2020, the third period of lockdown had undergone, The Anti-Terror Law was about to be nearly passed by the Philippine Congress and its rubber-stamp legislation seemed more horrifying than it was told. More dissenters of the draconian lockdowns were jailed for no reasonable actions at all. Protests were all but open, and so I was one of those countless students who actively critiqued Pres. Duterte since his first 100 days, and during this time, some were questioned about involvement with the supposed “Red” tactics which activists, dissenters and civil rights advocates are “propagandised” by the Makabayan bloc (a legally binding, officially elected and people-led commune of small political parties) into being “guerilla fighters” by the CPP-NPA and acknowledged members of the said extra-legal and political resistance which inherently has ideological correctness in the framework of Philippine politics, in which most civil rights organisations, human rights stalwarts, political experts and international watchdogs inherently deny and disgustingly remarked that legalities of the CPP are still being counted as political parties and critiques on neoliberalism and the rise of modern fascism are no strangers to threats of political oppression.
So, this was one of the main cultural concerns of Filipino parents and middle adults that was further inflamed during this sociopolitical uncertainty, ironically, that we should learn and build knowledge, yes, embody critical thinking, of course. But we cannot ‘qualm’ about everything political?
Because to them, it is ‘incessant’ to critique a sitting government whose wrongdoings are hurting its people, when in reality, checks and balances are needed. And lastly, should we run towards corruption, “we speak less of their wrongdoing, the better”. In no moral multiverse, should that ever work, re-run that thought, fuckfaces. Not only the Philippines, but the world was suffering too, so “I should shut up against injustice?” Hell no.
Anyway, during the first weeks of the legislative impact of the ATL, the duplication of Facebook accounts began to implicate our identities and somehow spread fallacious and sometimes damaging narratives about us being sympathetic to anti-Duterte and anti-State ideologies, moreso threatening fallacious plans to violence, when it is imperative to set our words against the idiocracies of their holding to power, to actual question that inability to provide their economic promises, sociocultural proliferation and foremost, the total alleviation of the suffering of Filipinos under a calamitous era of rising poverty and uncertainty of living.
At that time, I could and certainly be held for any weaponry and a possible criminal charge by “enacting anything that does not align with them”, including those that were deemed suspicious for their agenda, abstract rights such as oral dissent, yes, you read that right, censure at its purest form. Well, it was found to be the inherent propaganda they accuse during this period which continues until today. In the span of their mass accusations, they accused students, including me and my batchmates, across all universities in Manila and the remainder of the country, of supporting “communist” ideology (a Filipinised umbrella of negative connotations for any possible civil dissent) but not wholly focusing on the actual communist ideology vis-a-vis Marx, Lenin, and Mao and even doing guerilla living (in risking debating about this, I slowly researched and understood this since the pandemic, in which justifiably supported those have courageously done it after the unnecessary pillaging of the State in indigenous and social minorities across the Philippines masked as operations surrounding the subduing of said “insurgent rebels”).
And of course, the normal Juan Dela Cruz just plainly nods because it was the time of Duterte, since it was their Throne at that time. Fuck them for being paranoid when they are of abusing their supposed powers to enjoy hedonistic living during one of the presented historical sufferings in human history. It’s not beating the rise of extreme neoliberalism in your own nation-state allegations.
See now, the threat of us, students and citizens, asking for accountability, getting red-tagged, how is that not radicalising?
Of course, this time, the world was literally and politically sick, and countless issues were happening worldwide.
Hong Kong was under threat of beholding a draconian extradition law that shifted power pre-emptively to Beijing and Pres. Jinping, earlier than their promised autonomy ceasing, and oh, China? On top of their still-current legal squabble with the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea, Manila won a long-standing maritime dispute in an international legal court with other co-complainants towards Beijing. Still, China stems from furthering geopolitical disarray with its neighbours.
On the other side, the George Floyd murder and the BLM marches in the United States under the reign of Pres. Trump’s first term already filled with questionable governance, later revealed vast plutocratic and oligarchic corruption.
The kerfuffles of the British Parliament under PM Boris Johnson, whose cabinet members abused lockdown laws and held parties when Britons suffered,
Even, of course, Pres. Bolsonaro and his right grip on denialism and revisionism, more so with the destruction of the Amazon Forest and his deadly COVID response to desperate Brazilians…
…and more issues I will not say but not implying to shorten the lengthy list of issues this world has faced since then and now. Told you I did not only notice local issues, but global issues too. Learned humanities in motion, people.
c. On Losing Political Hope, In Gaining Resiliency and the Trap of Scapegoat-ism
Coincidentally, the human notion of uncertainty had caught up to my Dad’s concern about further political chaos, despite being a fully fervent supporter of both the Marcos and the Duterte political families. This era of worldly uncertainty pushed his plan to move me and his nuclear family away from Manila, with the notion of assurance that the Philippines would not see any socioeconomic hope at this moment, vis-a-vis said prescient socioeconomic issues, but mostly his concern is the health and education crisis and mine, the threat of censorship (his body language says otherwise) was his reasoning to move us away from the sickly Republic of the Philippines, into a ‘first-world’ country as he is was saying, “The prosperous Commonwealth of Australia!” he exclaimed.
Huh, yes, it was. Or so he thought if you’re looking at it like Alice in Wonderland.
“Thank the heavens, it was a brand new world.” Little old me thought once we landed down under years ago.
Nope, Rom. It marks your journey into the larger world of politics. If you think the pandesal and ‘perya’ of the Philippines were too burnt and in-the-nose as you have grown with it, wait till you unravel the sophistication and sinister reasoning of the White and Western way of the bread and circuses. Since moving here years ago, aside from the occasional rapturous headlines from Manila, I have observed Australian, European and American politics, as I was preparing to shift my learning into a Western framework of standardised higher learning.
Oh boy, did it click? The locale of realpolitik stands much clearer when it translates to an international response across states. But wait, you say you moved during the beginning of 2022, it would mean that…yes, the older Duterte is ending his term and is about to be replaced by…Pres. Bongbong Marcos Jr. *shock*
Does anyone order another box of democratic backsliding, no? Ok, it was pre-ordered, never mind.
But let’s pass by his main opponent first in that electoral race. Remember, as the Vice President, Madam Leni Robredo was the stalwart opposition to then-President. Duterte’s policies, in which she had spoken against the War on Drugs, in turn caused her to be removed from all cabinet instalments and happily instated her full force to the Angat Buhay Program of her office instead, she was my hopeful darling in the liberal side of Philippine politics, as her idealistic ways echoed her late husband’s public service of the city of Naga in Camarines Sur, a province in the Southeastern Visayas and as Department of Interior and Local Government secretariat.
She was very kind, very open (a main supporter of the Open FDI, main author of the Full Transparency Bill and prominent supporter of civil rights, Indigenous rights, LGBT and queer rights and environmental protection) and very collaborative (the Angat Buhay then-government program helped thousands and thousands of Filipinos from the education and health crises and including localised COVID-19 relief operations and medical services). A public attorney who professionally has never desired to run for even a Congresswoman seat for fears of politicisation and badmouthing due to his husband’s “too-good-to-be-true” track record, has become a voice of the Filipino.
She was the ideal politician. A near-perfect instance of governance. A wonderful book-end to enter the next era of Philippine politics. She was my last hope, probably my last tangible political ideality. How the hell did she lose? Me too, a question unanswerable in just a sentence.
Understanding the aftermath, it seems the scion of corruption worked right against her, right? The stifling of dissent, the passing of draconian laws, the political grifting working for the political families, and the death of actual intellectualism and the end of oppositional and mainstream representation of politics, coupled with the rapid inflexion of misinformation and disinformation, I lost any tangible hope now in the realm of the Philippine politics in general after she left office. However… thank you, Madam Leni, you have set the road now we’re about to build with such vigour, reason and defence, your decision to be no longer interested in national politics again [so far] is wholly justified.
However, I remained that same good hope along with a handful of good local mayors, former legislators and Senators. Tangible representation of the baton mostly went to the “lone opposition”, current Madam Senator Risa Hontiveros being entrusted the liberal way and hoped to conjunct them with the more progressive local and people-led political parties such as the oft-maligned Makabayan bloc, and further send a message of opposition and resistance to the super-majority in contention as the world is watching the Philippines at hand.
III. If Old Rom’s Radical Optimism met Young Rom’s Childish Idealism, What’s Our Lesson to Learn?
This was my reasoning for changing my stance in politics. I was fully radicalised away from the vanilla liberalism of Filipino politics, which was inspired, if not mirrored, by those of Western countries. I started to scrutinise them even more (that includes Australia’s) and explore and analyse other ideological alternatives. I realised that my designation with this form of belief system can be regarded as leftist. After all, I was about to detangle why this had a “bad taste” connotation in Filipino political culture.
But sucks to be you, Dad, right now, this has an even secular meaning to the political spectrum of the Western world, hotly debated in more different ways than the Filipinos do. Remember, the spectrum, when used in Manila, marks only a vector of projection, there’s no tangible left because the right directly outflanked any possible and logical contradictions it can make in the name of power rather than accountability and justice, loosening up barbaric violence instead of countering them in the formal legal and legislative brawls. In the current wide world? Make that a pandemonium.
Did my love for the homeland die? Hell no. Did it flourish further? Goddamn yes. Through connecting more to my political beliefs, further understanding my leftist standing, and ultimately acknowledging my two homelands’ politics are both locked and shaped by the hegemonic power of the United States, accelerating towards the repeat of history.
so we’re starting the still-new millennium with the threat to every civilisation and this fragile planet? Bet, yeah, we’ll ready to prevent that.
I did not forget the reason why I titled this stack like that. If anyone truly asks about my plans for the future in this worldly political climate? Well, it is like Jell-o, concrete and not-so-concrete. Have a job, secure personal financial stability, gain a Master's, and jump into Law if the circumstances allow, otherwise, I will further our activism.
I think the young Rom would jump for joy because he had seen enough shitfuckery and the dynamics of power all around him but was limited since he was not realistically mature enough to digest and experience said sociopolitical understandings. But it is a testament to the old Rom that someone from his side, his sibling, is now testing her capability to live freer, to test the zeitgeist of hatred.
Generally, the current struggle of the Palestinian people and all other oppressed minorities and denizens, whom all of the global recognitions have shaped my sociocultural understanding of outright racism, bigotry, fascism and injustice warrants a great deal of critical multi-faceted response.
At this time as well, it is now closer to my blood and soul, that my sister has since claimed a sense of liberated sexuality, a trans woman, which further amplified my sense of political responsibility, one that can be challenged nowadays, and more, as I prepare in case things go even south physically.
[And girl, did she know Hasan Piker slightly earlier than me, that’s wild.]
Now, this is the point of no return, after this, I have set my longstanding sociopolitical boundary many could call, just human decency and pure kindness to humankind, but in this political climate, I digress it is that easy to spell out the words, evil would always spin ways to reign in each other’s existence.
As the conservatives and anti-progressive people would soon denigrate me and call me ‘maka-kaliwa’ or ‘pinko’ in both my countries, I am happy to tell you that I am a socialist. Again, even if it means ties will be cut, risking my image, career or even my literal life, if I believe what people describe as my political views, so be it:
I wholeheartedly support
strengthened workers’ rights, transition into universal basic income and eventual global wealth redistribution
women’s rights, especially bodily autonomy, abortion rights and equal pay
protection rights and same-sex marriage for LGBT and queer people
people’s right to speech and dissent, anti-fascism and the right to protest
mutual aid, community organising, and the mobilisation of resources
actions that proliferate accountability and transparency in all facets of governance
anti-racism and further safeguards for Black people and other PoCs
universal healthcare across all basic facets of bodily care, “from mental health to aged care, from cradle to grave”
greater accountability and permanent recognition of Indigenous & Islander existences and rights and privileges across the world, including the process of “Closing the Gap” and even better truth-telling and treatises
environmental protection, ecological preservation and the global proliferation of climate solutions to combat the climate crisis.
To the average one, this is what my beliefs meant: All these complement the tenets of human recognition, rightful existence and the conservation of the environment from which we are stemming our resources to live and survive. Human empathy, be it called radical, otherwise.
Recently, I have been relentlessly focused and still learning about the life and works of Antonio Francesco Gramsci, his “Prison Notebooks”, and the theory of hegemony and the impact of cultural input into Marxism,
In that “In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture”, it did, you’re right, Antonio.
If his quotes as the transitional centrepiece of my commencement caption were not hints to you, my fellow human, I don’t know what is. Of course, if I do tell y’all that I am a budding political observant, so too I am a budding neophyte socialist, so please do help me understand further the Marxian critique and all other critical theories surrounding the facets of the capitalist and fascistic world we have.
I have always been taught young that kindness is an act of revolution, and my neurodivergent sense of justice would certainly agree with that until the very end (and not me blaming myself for the clinical risk of ADHD leading to Alzheimer's later in life, I swear). PLEASE, PEOPLE, WE NEED THE NECESSARY CRITIQUE AND RESPONSES, WE DON’T STOP LEARNING.
By the way, if you reach this far. How optimistic of you. I thought I would end my stack on a sombre note but it prevailed over my nihilism too. Since my generation is called out for “basing our own lives on vibes”, Pluto in Aquarius is not just a period of movement and significant change. Once again, this comes to our call of collective dreaming, each action we make now is a time of cosmic revolution of human proportions. I hope that this inspires even the smallest inch of one’s relentless optimism and to believe that everyone’s aspirations for a better future, those we sought in love, are possible.
I’ll borrow words from a certain debonnaire, Luigi Nicholas (free you, bro!) and make anew, should we remember when we finally confront the enemies of truth, virtue and the good:
“It is truly completely unjust. This is an insult to the intelligence of the people of the world and their lived experience.”
And how do we counter the evil that approaching our world? Simply believe in these four words. “inspire, aspire, love, hope.” And we fight till it happens.
'To INSPIRE is to light the path, to ASPIRE is to walk it, and through every last sliver of LOVE and HOPE, we find the strength to revolutionize what is beyond, our future”.
Believe in them, fight alongside them. Everyone will thank all of us, even YOU.
References (since I do not want this to be just hearsay):
Abad, 2024. Catholic Church’s progressiveness stops at women’s rights – expert. [news article] Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/philippines/catholic-church-progressiveness-stops-womens-rights-expert/
Beck, 2024. Neurodivergent culture and embodied knowledge beyond neoliberal identity politics. Culture & psychology, 30(3), 736-756.
De Dios and Ferrer, 2001. Corruption in the Philippines: Framework and context. Public Policy, 5(1), pp.1-42. https://cids.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Corruption-in-the-Philippines-vol.5-no.1-Jan-June-2001-2.pdf#page=2.39
Dulay, 2022. The Search for Spices and Souls: Catholic Missions as Colonial State in the Philippines. Comparative Political Studies, 55(12), 2050-2085. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211066222
Legault, Bourdon, & Poirier 2021. From neurodiversity to neurodivergence: the role of epistemic and cognitive marginalization. Synthese 199, 12843–12868. https://rdcu.be/d78eb.
Mabaquiao and Piamonte, 2024. Reassessing the Ethics of Utang na Loob. Kritike, 18 (2):121-138. https://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_35/mabaquiao&piamonte_september2024.pdf
Mackin, R. S. (2012). Liberation Theology: The Radicalization of Social Catholic Movements. Politics, Religion & Ideology, 13(3), 333–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2012.698979
Mozeleski, 2023. Democracy Dies In Broad Daylight - How the Philippines' Halted Media Speech Despite Its Commitment to the ICCPR. AUILR 2(3). https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2124&context=auilr
Ne'eman & Pellicano, 2022. Neurodiversity as Politics. Human development, 66(2), 149–157. https://doi.org/10.1159/000524277 Philippine Business of Education (PBEd), 2023. A Comprehensive Report on the State of Philippine Education, https://pbed.ph/blogs/47/PBEd/State%20of%20Philippine%20Education%20Report%202023
Rowsell, J., 2025. Perception, Poetry, and Purpose: An Autoethnography of a Chronically Ill and Neurodivergent Public Servant. https://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/4619/1/Rowsell_Julianna_2025_BDes_INCD_MRP.pdf
Santos, 2021. Remembering the 'progressive' Philippine Church. New Mandala. https://www.newmandala.org/remembering-the-progressive-philippine-church/.
Zaphir and Ellerton, 2021. Free Speech Doesn’t Mean You Can Say Whatever You Want. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/free-speech-doesnt-mean-you-can-say-whatever-you-want-wherever-heres-how-to-explain-this-to-kids-166334
The Australian Constitution inherently allows free speech and a High Court opinion implicates the importance of free speech as a tenet of the existence of an open society, Still, there is no current and existing Bill of Rights in the Australian body of laws that fully secures this public political ability.
Democratic backsliding has been a recent fixture in the Filipino government and its administrations, particularly in massive media control and censorship, not indicative of physical violence to journalists and activists.
Private schools in the Philippines have a hybrid system of presiding over the educational attainments of their student-clients and alumni stakeholders, they both adhere to DepEd and CHED's full models of foundational curriculums and at the same time, use their models of extra-curricular programs to complement studentry needs. The socioeconomic critique is that most financially able Filipinos select to raise children with private education over concerns of resources, social stigma and further capitalised advantages post-graduation.
The ‘debt of gratitude’ or utang-na-loob social culture in the Filipino diaspora is mainly a reaction to Western values of family and camaraderie. Within it, Filos exclusively implies a sense of longing for connection in times of crisis; they mean a sense of reciprocated action to balance the shared experience.
I was diagnosed in early childhood, largely consulted and examined during the late 2000s / early 2010s. So, this implies the veracity of my claim that I had already experienced notable factors of ADHD. Neurodivergence, however, is a taboo in the cultural aspect of mental health in the Philippines.