Recent(ish) Podcasts

No better time to update this website than when you’re procrastinating on more important deadlines.

So here’s a few recent(ish) podcasts I ended up guesting on in the last year-and-a-bit but never got around to documenting due to the madness that was 2022. Apparently it’s a valid academic platform now, go figure.

1. In the Public Square Episode 1: Civil Society Under Marcos Jr. 1 June 2022

For the pilot episode of veteran journalist John Nery’s online show In the Public Square, Vince Lazatin and I got roped into talking about prospects for civil society engagement under Marcos Jr. Hat-tip to the friends and colleagues whose exchanges I heavily (and confidentially) paraphrased for this convo. At the time, I felt that two things were important amidst the fog: that 1) now (read=the beginnings of the Marcos Jr admin) was the time to engage, not withdraw; and 2) k-pop stans and motorcycle/shimanong Viber groups are the future. Watch:

2. Podkas: Hindi Na Bago Yan! On Urbanization Challenges – 21 May 2022

45 minutes of ranting on the urbanisation challenges ng Pilipinas with some of my favourite young historians. Bleak, but fun!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4DKkU27iU62icaVzUshQxi?si=vNplyHpvTSuMmAxmLROpGA

3. Flipscience/ Ask Theory – Paano dapat suriin ang datos sa pagtugon sa mga krisis at sakuna? 21 March 2022

Was in Iligan that day in the midst of heavy fieldwork in the aftermath of Typhoon Odette, so listen to me ranting about post-crisis reconstruction in Marawi and Maguindanao as a #WomanInSTEM. This is probably one of the more coherent times where I am able to describe what the hell exactly I do for the PhD. Funnily, host Mikael Francisco was one of the more fun and on-the-ball students in a class I taught in one of my past lives in UP Diliman. Can barely remember anything from that period (was it introductory research writing or literature? who knows?). Thirteen years ago, to be exact. We old. https://open.spotify.com/episode/56eYYetixmRcYbw3z4hgyV?si=xvqm7pyZQdeFVN1_-UXaWw

Falling through the cracks

After more than two years of work, happy that this paper on inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian and peacebuilding action in the Bangsamoro is finally out, co-written with Bam Baraguir and John Bryant. This is part of a larger cross-country research project, with the BARMM work supporting similar deep-dives in Nigeria and Bangladesh. Also extremely happy that ODI’s HPG agreed to release the summary in Filipino, Maguindanaon, and Sinug. A Teduray version was initially planned but might not be possible for various reasons.

Full text downloadable here: https://odi.org/en/publications/inclusion-and-exclusion-in-displacement-and-peacebuilding-responses-in-mindanao-philippines-falling-through-the-cracks/

As part of the dissemination process, John and I also had a conversation on the highlights of the study. Timestamps for the good stuff: 3:58 for Datu Shattar Zailon of the Maguindanao-based Moro International Students Association and 9:37 for Fahadah and Ramadan, IDP youth leaders of Reclaiming Marawi Movement.

Island Wilayat Rising? Stemming the tide of violent extremism after Marawi

Thanks to a few twists of fate, I’ve got a short (read: heavily redacted) piece on Marawi published by the Australian National University’s East Asia Forum. It comes in several weeks later than I’d like, but at any rate, I’m posting here an earlier unedited and less circumspect version, written roughly two, three weeks ago.

—

Marawi was a victory for Islamist extremism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. The next choices taken by the Philippine government will determine the extent of its spread.

It has been more than sixty days since the outbreak of violence in the Islamic City of Marawi, just over 500 miles south of Manila, and kilometre zero of the island-region of Mindanao. What started in the morning of May 23 has led to over 314,000 persons displaced. More than half of the lakeside city is in ruins; approximately 100 civilians and hostages are still trapped in the crossfire. Aerial bombardments and house-to-house fighting continue. As the first widespread incident of urban violence in the Philippines—its partial precursors being Zamboanga in 2013, Ipil in 1995 and the razing of Jolo in 1974—the impact of the Marawi siege is unprecedented, not least in its implications to the rise of violent extremism in the region.

While the reported death of Abu Bakr Baghdadi and the jihadi group’s losses at Mosul and Raqqa signal a transformation of Daesh presence in the Middle East, Marawi by all accounts was a victory for islamist terrorism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. From a ragtag group of ‘black flag wannabes’ that could barely stage a bomb attack on the US Embassy in Manila in 2016, the Maute group now has enough street cred to attract international interest and support. They have achieved what others have failed to do: signal to the disgruntled and marginalised that violent extremism, particularly through urban warfare, is a viable path forward.

Continue reading “Island Wilayat Rising? Stemming the tide of violent extremism after Marawi” →