Philippine Democracy Online

The "Decolonial Turn in the Philippine South" primarily refers to a recent philosophical and scholarly development, most concretely represented by the 2024 book titled Decolonial Turn in the Philippine South by Menelito Mansueto, a scholar affiliated with Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) in southern Philippines. This work embodies a broader emerging intellectual movement or "turn" in the southern Philippines (especially Mindanao and surrounding areas), where thinkers apply decolonial frameworks to critique persistent colonial legacies, power structures, epistemic violence, and social injustices in the region. What is the "Decolonial Turn"? In global academia, the decolonial turn (building from thinkers like Enrique Dussel, Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and others in Latin American and Global South traditions) seeks to go beyond postcolonial critique. It emphasizes: Exposing coloniality...

Radical Democracy in the Time of Duterte is a 2022 book by Christopher Ryan Maboloc (published by ElziStyle Bookshop, Cotabato City, with a foreword by Wataru Kusaka).  It is a collection of essays (comprising ten chapters) that the author developed over five years, chronicling and analyzing the six-year presidency of Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (2016–2022).  The book draws heavily on postmodern and post-Marxist political theory—particularly the concept of radical democracy as articulated by Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe—to frame Duterte's leadership style and policies. Core Thesis and Framework Maboloc argues that Duterte's approach represents a form of radical democracy in the Philippine context. Drawing from Mouffe's ideas, he portrays radical democracy as embracing: The permanence of conflict and antagonism in politics (rejecting illusions of perfect consensus or a harmonious collective will). The rejection of a homogeneous society or elite-driven libe...