Community engaged, intersectional, and transdisciplinary scholarship
‘Saving the youth’: Children and young people as moral subjects in the Philippines’ punitive drug regime
with Gideon Lasco
in Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy
Using critical discourse analysis, we interrogate how drug policy discourses invoked the youth as both vulnerable and agentic to legitimize punitive anti-drug campaigns across three distinct periods in contemporary Philippine history: Marcos Sr.’s early dictatorship (1972-1975); Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency (2001-2010); and Duterte’s administration (2016-2022).
Sexual Orientation Disparities in Adulting: Emerging Adulthood Markers, Depression and Anxiety among Filipino Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Women
with Jerome V. Cleofas
in Sexuality & Culture
Drawing from an online survey sample of 768 young Filipino female undergraduate students, we examine how emerging adulthood markers, psychological distress outcomes (i.e., depression and anxiety), and their relationships differ between heterosexual and sexual minority women.
Transgender Health Dilemmas: An Intersectional Analysis of the Therapeutic Itineraries of Transgender Communities in the Philippines
in Journal of Homosexuality
In this study, I leverage an intersectional lens to characterize the therapeutic itineraries of local transgender (trans) communities vis-à-vis salient cisnormative and capitalist structures in Philippine society that produce trans health inequities. In doing so, I foreground the concept of “trans health dilemmas,” or the dilemmatic decision-making circumstances and processes that force trans Filipinos to choose between their trans-specific health needs and other needs.
The Early HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Philippines (1984-1995)
with Gideon Lasco
in Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints
In this article, we map the ways HIV and AIDS figured into and subsequently influenced larger political and social issues in the Philippines and how this, conversely, informed the ways HIV/AIDS was framed and responded to. Our history reveals that during the 1980s, HIV/AIDS was primarily perceived as a foreign threat, mobilized against US military presence in the country. Then, in the early 1990s, HIV/AIDS became a moral issue, having been enveloped into reproductive politics at the time borne out of the long-standing church-state tensions in the Philippines.
From the restroom to a national discussion of LGBTQ+ rights: A case of discrimination in the Philippines
with Rowalt C. Alibudbud
in Journal of Lesbian Studies
Taking cues from Richardson’s sexual citizenship framework, we investigate the diverse rights discourses among sectoral groups, such as local LBGTQ+ organizations and their allies, high-ranking Filipino politicians, and religious organizations. Analysis of local discourses showed that those supporting the SOGIE Equality Bill leverage identity-based rights discourses, while those opposed primarily navigate these debates using conduct-based rights discourses.
Contending with precarity: Digital pathways to sexual and reproductive healthcare among transgender Filipinos during the COVID-19 pandemic
in Social Science & Medicine
Drawing from in-depth interviews with self-identified transgender Filipinos, this study illustrates how digital health initiatives, especially online community groups, can address discontinuities of care that emerged and were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, these online communities of care not only connect trans Filipinos to culturally competent and affordable care but also foster a sense of belongingness and support. Taken together, this study underscores the need to go beyond technical access to care to ensure that trans-inclusive and trans-responsive sources and providers of care are made available throughout the healthcare system.
Behavioural responses to SOGIE-based harassment among university students: a qualitative study on bystander intervention in the Philippines
in Psychology & Sexuality
In-depth interviews with Filipino university students foreground how those with salient distinct identities from targets of harassment surfaced hesitations and barriers to successfully intervening (e.g. cisgender and heterosexual bystanders vis-à-vis LGBTQI+ targets of harassment), while bystanders who associate with victims of SBH, either by acknowledging them as friends or as fellow human beings, articulated substantial motivation and greater ease in intervening. Here, the recognition of shared identities in others — or kapwa—fosters bystander intervention as it counteracts the inhumane treatment targeted at LGBTQI+ individuals whom the bystander considers equal and no different from them.
COVID-19 community pantries as community health engagement: the case of Maginhawa community pantry in the Philippines
with Charles Anthony P. Suarez, Mary Louise B, Rivera, Natasha Denise S. Montevirgen, and Jerome V. Cleofas
in Community Development Journal
This study explores the ways that the Maginhawa Community Pantry addresses both emergent and pre-existing health needs among Filipinos during the COVID-19 pandemic by engaging in diverse activities that (1) mobilize the community for health, (2) improve access to healthcare, (3) ensure community collaboration and (4) call for collective action for systemic issues. This study highlights the capacity and potential of community pantries as a health response beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and address gaps in the Philippine healthcare system.
Intersectionality and the Invisibility of Transgender Health in the Philippines
in Global Health Research and Policy
This article elucidates how the invisibility of trans Filipinos in health is a product of co-existing and interacting prejudiced and discriminatory institutions, such as the law, education, and medicine, where the historical experiences of colonization, the hegemony of cisgenderism, and the impact of capitalism remain salient. By elucidating these co-existing and interacting structures and forces, this article highlights the gaps in the Philippine healthcare system, such as the lack of affirming and protective policies for trans health and the limited cultural competence of healthcare providers.
Queering Sexual Education in the Philippines: Policy and Program Implications for LGBTQ+ Youth
with Klarizze V. Siddayao
in Review of Women’s Studies
This study is a qualitative gender analysis of CSE-related policies and programs following the Six Domains of Gender Analysis by the USAID Interagency Gender Working Group. The analysis showed that sexual health education in the Philippines excludes topics, perspectives, and health problems relevant to Filipino LGBTQ+ youth. This is because CSE in the Philippines follows a heteronormative framing focused on family formation and procreation, is largely influenced by Catholic doctrines, and deploys an individualistic discourse on SRH that falls under the same pedagogy that excludes the LGBTQ+ community.
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