The last year has been horrifyingly difficult, and for my main collaborators and myself, the path towards survival seems to be channelling the rage and frustration from all of these things into working as hard as possible. Since the Philippine population will only get mostly-vaccinated by 2023 I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to keep this up. Maybe we can survive (and thrive) out of spite?
In the meantime this is a rundown of a few publicly-available things that’s been released in my world(s) in the last twelve months:
COVID-19 work/as UrbanisMO.Ph
- March 2020, as UrbanisMO.ph – “In Metro Manila, Fighting COVID-19 Requires Helping the Poor—Now” Published by the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism and other major news networks. https://pcij.org/article/3890/saving-metro-manila. This was picked up by GMA’s documentary group into a spin-off episode + we’ve got a few COVID-focused episodes on the UrbanisMO Podcast, in partnership with Young Public Servants.
- August 2020, with Tanya Quijano and Abbey Pangilinan – “Misplaced Priorities, Unnecessary Effects: Collective Suffering and Survival in Pandemic Philippines. ” The Asia-Pacific Journal 18(16). Available at: <https://apjjf.org/-Abbey–Pangilinan–Maria-Carmen–Ica–Fernandez–Nastassja–Quijano/5435/article.pdf>
- ·October 2020, with Justin Muyot, Abbey Pangilinan, and Tanya Quijano – “A Hero’s Welcome? Repatriated Overseas Filipino Workers and COVID-19.” Published by the London School of Economics SEAC. [online]. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/seac/2020/10/08/a-heros-welcome-repatriated-overseas-filipino-workers-and-covid-19/
Policy-directed work in Mindanao/Bangsamoro
- Long-running work released in June 2020 with Maripaz Abas, Tirmizy Abdullah, Hadzer Birowa, Bam Baraguir and Ombra Imam – “Children of War: A Rapid Assessment of Orphans in Muslim Mindanao.” Published by The Asia Foundation with support from the Australian Embassy. https://asiafoundation.org/publication/children-of-war-a-rapid-needs-assessment-of-orphans-in-muslim-mindanao/ I’m pretty happy that we were finally able to get this out, and that there’s interest amongst the BTA and other parties to take the work forward.
- The public version of a strategic review of Australia’s support to peace in Mindanao, released in November 2020 with the management response. Worked on this just before the pandemic hit with Fermin Adriano and Noor Saada – https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/development/strategic-review-and-management-response-australias-support-peacebuilding-conflict-affected-mindanao-2020
There’s quite a few other projects that’s still in the pipeline/embargoed for various reasons, as usual, pero pwede na muna to.
2021 seems like 2020 redux–but still let’s try to be useful in the meantime, despite?
Notes from the Field 