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
Following Rice: Agrarian Transformation in the Central Luzon Rice Corridor
Ph.D. Dissertation (in progress)
This dissertation investigates the agrarian question in the Philippines through a study of the political economy of rice. Once a net rice exporter in the early 1980s, the Philippines had, by 2008, become the world's largest rice importer. In 2019, the Rice Tariffication Law fundamentally restructured the rice economy, dismantling protections for domestic farmers and transferring control to private traders. This reversal drives the central inquiry: How did this transformation occur, and what does it reveal about agrarian change, land relations, and national development in the Philippines?
The project follows rice through the Central Luzon Rice Corridor (CLRC)—a contiguous formation linking Nueva Ecija (production), Bulacan (milling and storage), Metro Manila (primary import entry point), and Pampanga-Tarlac (sites of infrastructure development and agrarian contestation). Following rice through these sites reveals how the Philippine state manages the agrarian question spatially: through rice liberalization that exposes farmers to volatile global markets; land reclassification that converts farmland for commercial and infrastructure use; and elite-led infrastructure projects built on former U.S. military bases that reconfigure rural and urban space. These strategies work to displace agrarian demands while deepening import dependency and reinforcing disarticulated, externally-oriented development.
The project develops Following Rice as Method—a grain-level approach inspired by critical commodity studies that traces rice across its circuits of production, circulation, and consumption. It contributes to critical agrarian studies by centering rice, the nation's staple crop and largest agricultural sector, which has received far less attention than export commodities (banana, coconut, sugar). It advances critical logistics and infrastructure studies by examining warehouses, ports, and spatial projects as material sites where the agrarian question is managed. The project also engages decolonial methodologies by centering Filipino epistemologies including kapwa (shared identity), pakikiisa (solidarity), kwentuhan (storytelling as method), and gawaing masa (mass work), working in partnership with peasant movements to co-produce knowledge.
I am Filipino-American with family roots in Pampanga, where my lolo (grandfather) and generations before him farmed rice until displacement following the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. My mother became an OFW in 1986. Learning my family's story from my lolo, I realized this research traces the processes of land loss and labor export that produced my own diasporic position, bringing the analysis of agrarian transformation home across generations.
Research Questions:
How did the Philippines shift from rice exporter in the 1980s to the world's top importer by 2008, and what historical processes produced this reversal?
How has the Philippine rice economy been reorganized after the 2019 Rice Tariffication Law, and how do stakeholders understand where value is now captured?
How does the Philippine state organize the spatial governance and infrastructure of rice and land amid agrarian transition in the Central Luzon Rice Corridor?
How do farmers and peasant movements theorize and contest these transformations, and what alternatives do they advance?
Across these questions, I argue that rather than resolving the agrarian question, the Philippine state disperses it—into the city, through overseas work, and into former rice lands now claimed for “development.”
Methodological Training
My research engages with agrarian political economy, critical development studies, world-systemic historical materialism, and decolonial methodologies, focusing on the contemporary agrarian question in peripheral social formations. My methodological approach combines:
Filipino Epistemologies and Ethnographic Methods (Multi-sited ethnography, Participatory Action Research, kwentuhan, gawaing masa, Qualitative analysis with NVivo and ATLAS.ti)
Spatial Analysis and GIS (ArcGIS, ArcGIS StoryMaps, field mapping and visualization)
Archival and Historical Methods (Critical discourse analysis, legal analysis, archival research across Philippine institutions)
Political Science and Quantitative Methods (SAS, STATA, SQL)
Public Scholarship and Multi-Media Production (Photography and community exhibitions, videography, audio documentation, podcast production, community-engaged research design).
Professional Associations
American Anthropology Association
American Association of Geographers
American Sociology Association
International Studies Association