In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Having discussed the reality of decentralized politics in the Philippines, and the fate of political families at the local level, the question might well be asked, “How is political power at the national level acquired?” Under the 1987 Constitution, presidents are elected for single, 6-year terms (with no re-election).

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Today, March 28, the Center for Global Development hosted an event exploring the Partnership for Growth (PFG), which is an initiative by the United States government to try new strategies to work with select countries for broad-based economic growth. The Philippines is the only country in Asia selected…

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This past week I (and, truth be told, most of the faculty in the Southeast Asia Studies Program at SAIS) went to Toronto for the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting. This was a distinct change in atmosphere from the policy-oriented D.C. environment to the more abstract and less time-bound world of academe.

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Given that I’ve written that kinship is the idiom of social organization in the Philippines, it’s probably not surprising that when asked for one book to read about the Philippines I often recommend An Anarchy of Families: State and Society in the Philippines, edited by Alfred W. McCoy.

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The Philippines has been noted as having one of the smallest gender disparities in the world. The gender gap has been closed in both health and education; the country has had two female presidents…

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Religion is once again in the headlines about the Philippines as 600,000 members of the home-grown Iglesia ni Cristo (INC – Church of Christ) held a prayer rally in Manila yesterday. Meanwhile, Catholics cheered the Vatican’s formal announcement last week that the second Roman Catholic Saint from the Philippines…

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Peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Kuala Lumpur last week featured chocolates on Valentine’s Day. It was a light moment in talks characterized by the Malaysian facilitator as “sincere but tough.” As the next scheduled meeting in March approaches…

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The Philippines has many cultural similarities to the rest of Southeast Asia. Some similarities, take cockfighting for example, puzzle some Filipinos and give great pride to other Filipinos (particularly males). Cockfighting is pre-colonial (as the chronicler of Magellan’s voyage when it arrived in the Philippines, Antonio Pigafetta observed) and is shared with Southeast Asia…

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One of the interesting things about team-teaching a course on “The Domestic Politics of Southeast Asia: The Philippines and Thailand” is that I myself have never taken a course on Southeast Asia. I was an American politics specialist as a graduate student, with a dissertation on “Interpretation and American Electoral Studies.” On the Philippines in particular…

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No sooner did I warn in last week’s blog on my way to Washington, D.C., that there is “a danger that U.S.-Philippine relations will be viewed entirely through the lens of ‘the rise of China’” than I was greeted upon arrival by the morning front-page story in The Washington Post entitled, “Philippines may allow greater U.S. military presence in reaction to China’s rise.” The article stated that “the sudden rush by many in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace Washington is a direct reaction to China’s rise as a military power and its assertiveness in staking claims to disputed territories, such as the energy-rich South China Sea.”

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