Research Areas
Agrarian Political Economy; Agroecology; Anticolonial and Decolonial Theories; Anti-Systemic Movements; Critical Agrarian Studies; Critical Development Studies; Critical Security Studies; Development Geographies; GIS, Global Political Economy; Historical Sociology; Imperialism; Migration; Militarism and Counterinsurgency; Mixed Methods; National Liberation Movements; Philippine Studies; Political Ecology; Southeast Asia; Third World Marxism; Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL); World-Systemic Historical Materialism; World-Systems Theory
Dissertation
Rice and Resistance: Land Reform as National Liberation in the Philippines
Ph.D. Dissertation (in progress)
This dissertation examines how colonial agrarian structures have persisted in the Philippines despite multiple political transitions, focusing on rice cultivation in Central Luzon and the organizing efforts of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP). Through studying KMP as the country's largest peasant organization, I analyze how the National Democratic Movement articulates genuine land reform as integral to national liberation, challenging dominant narratives that dismiss such movements as obsolete—contrary to Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis (1992).
Grounded in historical materialism, my research addresses a central puzzle: why has land reform consistently failed in the Philippines despite decades of promises and popular demands? I trace this failure through three critical historical junctures—the 1960 Green Revolution promises, the 1983-86 democratic transition, and the 2019 Rice Tariffication Law—examining how elite interests have adapted their resistance mechanisms across technological, political, and economic transitions. The Philippines' transformation from rice self-sufficiency to becoming the world's largest rice importer by 2010 illuminates broader patterns of dependency affecting peripheral social formations under neoliberal policies.
Specific case studies include the decades-long struggle at Hacienda Luisita, where the Aquino-Cojuangco family used Stock Distribution Options to avoid actual land redistribution; the 2022 Tinang 83 arrests of farmers engaging in bungkalan (collective farming) on disputed lands; and KMP's organizing around alternatives like the Rice Industry Development Act as a counter to the Rice Liberalization Law (2019).
Central to this analysis is the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER), developed through peace process negotiations between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front. By comparing competing CASER drafts, I examine how the ND Movement's vision of integrated agrarian reform and national industrialization differs fundamentally from market-based approaches, revealing alternative development paradigms often excluded from academic discourse.
Following Orisanmi Burton's framework in Tip of the Spear, I use “the resources of academic scholarship to rigorously elaborate a genealogy of knowledge production that today largely remains criminalized, pathologized, and intentionally hidden from public view.” This study contributes to critical agrarian studies, world-systems theory and dependency theory, and anti-systemic movements literature through ethnographic fieldwork, discourse analysis, and archival research,
My research questions are:
What mechanisms have elite interests used to maintain land control across political transitions?
How does the ND Movement's vision for agrarian transformation differ from government approaches?
How did KMP emerge and evolve as an organization?
How has KMP engaged rice cultivation as a site of agrarian struggle?
Methodological Training
My research engages with agrarian political economy, critical development studies, and world-systemic historical materialism (WSHM), focusing on the contemporary agrarian question in peripheral social formations. My methodological approach combines:
Indigenous Filipino methods and Ethnographical Methods (Multi-sited, Participatory Action Research; Qualitative, NVivo, ATLAS.ti)
Spatial Analysis and GIS (ArcGIS, Story Maps)
Historical and Archival Methods
Political Science Methods, Quantitative Political Analysis (SAS, STATA, SQL)
Data Visualization and UX Design (Illustrator, Tableau)
Professional Associations
American Anthropology Association
American Association of Geographers
American Sociology Association
International Studies Association