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Across the Global South, authoritarian rule and extractivist agendas have intensified the harassment and murder of activists protecting remnant forest frontiers. In 2017, Global Witness documented the brutal murders of 207 defenders, the deadliest year on record. In the Philippines, violence against defenders has recently accelerated under the increasingly authoritarian regime of President Rodrigo Duterte. Excluding drug-related extrajudicial killings, an additional 30 murders were documented in the country in 2018, the highest number of such killings in any country that year. Largely because of expanding plantations and mines, the frontier province of Palawan has experienced a surge in land grabbing and illegal logging, driving defender harassment, intimidation, and death. While scholars have explored the trends and patterns behind violence against defenders in Southeast Asia, few have considered how the rural poor emerge as activists, the role of NGOs in this process, and how defenders negotiate their activism with everyday life and livelihood. This study fills this gap by ethnographically examining how NGOs on Palawan island mobilize rural communities to shape defender practices and by exploring why defenders do what they do amid mounting threats against them, their loved ones, and their comrades across the island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both the Philippines and Singapore, rapid capitalist development over the last decade combined with intensified inequalities in wealth and income. The conflict this generated resulted in significant – but very different – political responses by elites and popular forces in these countries. In the Philippines, public disenchantment with established elites and institutions fuelled support for populist representation through the authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte. In Singapore, populist sentiments were evident also, but ruling elites were more effective in containing conflict to reinforce prevailing institutions of representation. The explanation for these different outcomes resides not in the intrinsic quality of established institutions, but in the contrasting social foundations on which they rest: technocratic state capitalism in Singapore and private oligarchic capitalism in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Philippine left's short-lived association with the government of Rodrigo Duterte from 2016 vexed political observers, whether sympathetic to or critical of the left. Against the charge that the left was simply subordinated as a political force to Duterte's multi-class populist-cum-fascist project, this article argues that the left was both friend and foe of Duterte, who promised an aggressive War on Drugs as well as socioeconomic reforms. It situates the left–Duterte relationship within the history of engagement by new political actors with elite democracy in the Philippines since 1987. The friend-and-foe or dual strategy analysis uncovers some of the richness of the left's progressive engagement with Duterte. This contributes to an understanding of Philippine political history by providing a profile of progressive engagement involving a set of actors different from those who have previously been analysed – viz. national democrats rather than social democrats – and an increasingly authoritarian administration explicitly espousing anti-human rights rhetoric. We specify the conditions for the emergence of the left–Duterte relationship, how it unfolded, and the tipping points that led to its collapse. The findings underscore the complexities and extreme difficulty of transforming Philippine politics through progressive engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic elections in the Philippines and India in 2019 yielded a paradoxical result: the strengthening of the political hegemony of personalities partial to authoritarian rule. An examination of economic, social, and political conditions prior to the elections shows that the usual paradigms used to explain voters' choices – class theory, rational choice theory, and patron–client theory – fail to account for the sweeping victories of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A more useful framework is that of charismatic authority derived from Max Weber. Employing this paradigm, the article discusses the origins of charismatic authority in the two polities, the differences in charismatic appeal, the social construction of charisma, charisma and the creation of the Other, and the democratic dialectic at the heart of charismatic authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some tramlines, as human‐made common pool resources, sustained while others are not, even under a similar polycentric governance structure? Do the institutional design principles of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework explain these different outcomes? The National Tramline Program is a national rural infrastructure development project started in 2009 by the research institute of the Department of Agriculture in the Philippines. Using originally collected survey data and employing mixed methods, we examine the determinants of the operational status of tramlines by comparing successful and failed cases. Building upon the IAD framework and polycentric governance for common pool resource management, we demonstrate that in addition to the farmers' commitment to collective actions, the institutional characteristics of micro‐institutions, namely, the democratic selection of a leader for the farmers' associations, are key to sustaining tramlines. Furthermore, case studies of both success and failure illustrate that the active involvement of municipal local governments and the presence of coordination among related agencies at various levels are essential for maintaining tramlines as human‐made common pool resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores social policy reforms championed by the Philippines' strongman president Rodrigo Duterte during his first three years in office (2016–19), as a case for examining the transformative potential of social policy expansion under rising new right‐wing and authoritarian leaders. By showing how political economy and historico‐institutional conditions foreclose the transformative possibilities of the social policy changes effected by Duterte, the author offers a critique of current tendencies in global development discourses to treat all forms of social policy expansion as progressive. In the Philippines case, there is no progressive ideology guiding the reforms, nor are there political movements overseeing the expansion of social rights now inscribed in law. Rather, the reforms institutionally entrench a minimalist approach to universalism and strengthen the foothold of poverty targeting as an organizing principle of social provisioning. Social policy expansion under Duterte manifests aspects of the 'dark side' of social policy reforms during the current global political moment, including the use of such policy reforms to legitimize a conservative and authoritarian political order, and the functionality, across the political spectrum, of 'narrow universalism' — the type championed by international development agencies — which serves to deepen segmentation in social provisioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Duterte of the Philippines implemented an open "war" on drugs based upon claims of an over-proliferation of illegal drugs in the country. Despite summary killings of suspected users and dealers, Duterte enjoys popular support among Filipinos. This paper assesses reasons behind the support using citizens' perceptions of the severity of the drugs/crime problem, their punitiveness, and authoritarian attitudes as explanations. A sample of 114 Filipinos across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao responded to an electronic survey about socio-legal issues. Results show that drugs/crime are perceived as serious problems nationally yet only minor problems locally. This perceived national seriousness is significantly related to support for Duterte. Trust in the law and enforcement agents, an authoritarian attitude, and region are also strongly related to support for Duterte. This paper concludes with reflections on information manipulation as means to advance political ends and the importance of context in furthering theories of authoritarian submission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two and a half years into the Duterte administration, the country is facing high inflation rates, weak political institutions, and political uncertainty. While there are efforts toward political reform as well as peaceful settlement of conflicts, the country remains divided, with no clear strategy for reforms or nation-building being offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights major issues that affected indigenous peoples in the Philippines in 2018. Topics discussed include the prevalence of terrorist tagging, illegal arrests and detention under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, extrajudicial killings of indigenous peoples, and mining and energy projects in indigenous lands.

The author explores populism in the Philippines under the political leadership of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Topics discussed include the character and attitude of Duterte which contributed to his alleged global notoriety, the commitment demonstrated by Duterte to helping displaced families due to Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, and the political support given by poor communities to Duterte.

This article examines the reason behind the dramatic shift in Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte Administration. His predecessor, president Benigno Aquino, vigorously challenged China's expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea throughout his six-year term. However, president Rodrigo Duterte's actions and pronouncements are undoing the former president's geopolitical agenda of balancing China's expansion in the disputed waters. He distances the Philippines from the United States, its long-standing treaty ally, and gravitates toward China. This stance aims to earn goodwill with China so that the Philippines can avail itself of enormous aids and loans from China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This stemmed from this administration's fear that the Philippines would not benefit from China's emergence as an economic power. Nevertheless, by appeasing an expansionist power, the Philippines becomes complicit to China's long-term strategy of maritime expansion to push the United States out of East Asia. In conclusion, the article warns that the Duterte Administration might end up losing the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea and the confidence and trust of its allies and security partners. This administration might also leave the public coffers empty and dry because of China's reneging on its commitment to fund the Philippines' massive infrastructure-building program, labeled "Build, Build, and Build." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is an explication of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the first of the four-item substantive agenda in the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and the Marxist armed movement represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Signed in 1998, the CARHRIHL was a product of the peace process that aims to end the decades-long armed conflict via negotiated political settlement. The research objective is to provide an evaluation of the importance of the CARHRIHL in the entire peace process, and in the protection of the human rights of civilians amidst the armed conflict, while providing recommendations to strengthen the CARHRIHL's implementing mechanism. The study identified the three main factors causing the violations in the CARHRIHL - (1) the Parties' differences in the framework and operationalization of the CARHRIHL; (2) the not fully functioning Joint Monitoring Committee ( JMC); and (3) the militarist counter-insurgency campaigns by the GRP security forces. These have undermined the peace initiatives of various stakeholders and the future of the peace process. Among the research work's recommendations were the following: 1. Effect procedures that protect human rights and repeal those that violate it and rehabilitate the victims. 2. The GRP and the NDFP should honor the previously signed agreements that laid down the objectives and guiding principles for the conduct of the peace talks. 3. The GRP and the NDFP must implement mechanisms of public consultations with human rights organizations concerning human rights and the peace talks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is everywhere and even government-run institutions of higher learning are not spared from such dilemma. Corruption inside State Universities and Colleges might be thought to be the small time or less impact problem in governance compared to other government entities amassing hard-earned people's taxes, but the fact that schools are the second home of knowledge and values of an individual, therefore, graft and corruption values (inherited, observed or adapted) must first be cut within its grooming point. The study shall focus on how some government-run institutions of higher learning addressed the long standing deep rooted ill of society - corruption in their doorsteps. A review of policies and current practices in their fight of corruption of at least three to four government-run institutions of higher learning shall be showcased in this study. The results of the study shall be awareness and formalization of this infant field in Philippine Governance System and Public Administration encompassing different tools like internal auditing, systems studies, monitoring of government resources utilization, corruption prevention promotion and education drive, integrity systems check, corruption vulnerability assessments, red tape assessment, and the like. A conclusion formulated that corruption prevention should be embraced in all government entities especially in State Universities and Colleges, shifting from the old thought that we react after perpetrators of graft and corruption had amassed national wealth - preventing them doing such, by formulating ways to put in place integrity systems and promoting the culture of good governance for all time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's violent relationship with language. Topics discussed include Duterte's verbal war on the independent press, his success in showing that he is above scrutiny, criticism and the institutions that have facilitated established norms, and his belief that women are the weaker sex.

The article focuses on the economic and political condition of the Philippines as of 2017 under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. Topics discussed include the changes and development in the country's national politics, the concerns on issues including the administration's war on drugs, insurgency in the Muslim Mindanao, and nationwide communist insurgency, and the uncertainty over the country's independent foreign policy.

Duterte's war on drugs is representative of the wider crackdown on civil society, especially against marginalised communities and the political opposition in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. It points to the fragility of democratic spaces in the region, which risk being further weakened by international donor transition and withdrawal. This paper explores the reasons behind the withdrawals before setting out how civil society and donors must respond in order to help build resilient community groups and push back against the decline in democratic spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States … both in military, but economics also,” said Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to a burst of applause from an audience of officials in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the symbolic seat of China's ruling Communist Party. At the Philippine-Chinese trade forum that same day, October 20, 2016, Duterte opened his speech by asking, “What is really wrong with an American character?” Americans are, he continued, “loud, sometimes rowdy, and they have this volume of their voice … not adjusted to civility…. They are the more forward commanding voice befitting obedience.” Evoking some deep Filipino racialist tropes, Duterte then mocked the flat, nasal American accent and rued the time he was questioned at the Los Angeles airport by a “Black” officer with a “black” uniform, “black shoes,” and a “black” gun. Moving from rhetoric to substance, Duterte quietly capitulated to Beijing's relentless pressure for bilateral talks to settle the dispute over the South China Sea, virtually abrogating Manila's recent slam-dunk win on that issue before an international court (Demick and Wilson 2016; DU30 News 2016). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since assuming the presidency, Rodrigo R. Duterte has "stuck to his guns" in carrying out his campaign pledge to launch a violent anti-drug campaign. Duterte's presidency was preceded by six years of political stability and high growth under the relatively liberal and supposedly reformist administration of President Benigno "Noynoy" S. Aquino, III. What did voters find so appealing about Duterte given that drugs and criminality were not a major national concern until he launched his candidacy? Unlike previous populist politicians in the post-Marcos Philippines, Duterte's strongest support did not come from the poorest voters but rather from the elite and the middle class who most feared for their personal security. Although Aquino was widely perceived to be personally honest, his administration had become "systemically disjunctive" and vulnerable to replacement by violent illiberalism because its narrative of "good governance" had been undermined, its strategic allies were weakened, and liberal institutions discredited. Duterte is an illiberal populist who changed the prevailing political order into an illiberal one through a new law-and-order governing script, new key strategic groups (the communist left and the police), and the quick removal of remaining liberal constraints (particularly in Congress and the Supreme Court). Duterte constructed a strongman political model at the local level before "nationalising" it after his election as president. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses topics within the issue including the early presidency of Rodrigo R. Duterte in the Philippines, popularity of former President Benigno "Noynoy" S. Aquino III, and anti-drug campaign.