Publications

The dominance of Malay-Muslim discourse in the public and political sphere is set to continue into the future, if not, deepening further. The ‘Islamisation arms race’ that has preoccupied past administrations seems set to continue as BERSATU and PAS challenge PKR and UMNO on their Islamic credentials to govern. At the moment, there is no…

In Pakil, Laguna, billionaire tycoon tycoon Enrique Razon’s Prime Metro Power Holdings Corp. and JBD Water Power are implementing a 1400 MW Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Project, also known as Ahunan Dam, on the east bank of Laguna de Bay. Over 300 hectares of land are expected to be impacted by the project. This will cause…

Image by Greenpeace In February 1986, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in major regions of the Philippines to call for the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos. Widely known as a non-violent revolt, the so-called EDSA People Power Revolution struck the final blow to two decades of authoritarian rule and eventually paved the…

Cashing In on the Climate Crisis through Agricultural Digitalization, a new study from the ETC Group produced with support from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Southeast Asia Manila Office, explores how the climate crisis is being turned into an investment opportunity for financial actors, and how agricultural digitalization is facilitating the commodification of climate into assets…

Opening New Frontiers: Expanding Global Solidarity in an Uncertain and Tangled World How can we (re)build global solidarity amidst a volatile, tangled, and unpredictable world disrupted by multidimensional crises in an increasingly authoritarian neoliberal capitalist relations and ecological devastation? This has been the underlying question in the workshop held during the office opening event of…

Die Serie von Artikeln unter dem gemeinsamen Arbeitstitel «Lessons learned durch Covid-19: Transformation einer globalen Krise zur globalen Solidarität?»,1 die wir, das Regionalbüro Südostasien der Rosa-LuxemburgStiftung in Manila hiermit vorstellen möchten, entstand zu Beginn der weltweiten Pandemie im Sommer 2020. Zu dieser Zeit schien die «Welt aus den Fugen geraten» zu sein. Nicht nur die gesundheitliche…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the struggle of Southeast Asian nations as they face one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history. The pandemic amplified existing social divisions and inequality and paved way for the rise of new authoritarianism. The economic crisis hit the most vulnerable sectors of society with little to no social…

The official rhetoric regarding the ‘New Normal’ in Indonesia has become infused with the discourse on the imagination and aspiration of life beyond COVID-19. In this essay, we investigate how the idea of the New Normal is being complicated, negotiated, and contested by different grassroots solidarity practices in Indonesia. Embedded in specific local contexts and…

The Indonesian government released a restriction policy in response to curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions significantly impact almost all sectors, particularly the food and logistics sectors, creating food insecurity and a chaotic situation at the grassroots. On the other hand, community initiatives have emerged to overcome the grassroots vulnerabilities through the…

The paper examined the demands, activities, tactics and alliances forged by the Nagkaisa (United) labor coalition as the authoritarian covid response of Duterte in the Philippines led to an unprecedented economic crisis. Nagkaisa is the most successful experiment in uniting organized labor in the last decade. It pushed for a response that prioritizes workers’ rights…