Meaningful exchanges during the 4th SES Philippine Politics and Culture Conference

The first day of the 4th Philippine Politics and Culture Conference was filled with colorful and meaningful interactions. Difficult issues such as the role of Religion in politics and how to handle policy and its implementation in the midst of the reality of the adversarial relationship between civil society and the political leadership took center-stage. Mr. Beljun Enaya, a faculty at the Visayas State University said that academics can talk to each other sans the vile that characterize politics in our time.

DILG Provincial Director Bruce Colao said that people rely on the bureaucracy for the effective realization of the government's function in a democratic system. Meanwhile, a wonderful exchange of ideas occurred on the issue of IP rights. Dr. Jeffry Ocay was happy to share his research experiences as he interacted with Dr. Roger Bayod after the latter presented his paper on IPRA. Dr. Ryan Urbano earlier also offered his insights on the ideal speech theory necessary for any dialogue to flourish. 

Dr. Vic Aguilan of Silliman University opined when asked by Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc about the political disagreements of people that the electorate must think beyond the elections and realize that we all have a stake in the democratic process in terms of doing our duty to society as responsible citizens. Dr. Maboloc earlier played the devil's advocate as he challenged Mr. Enaya's paper on Ranciere and Sartre. "We can argue as decent human beings," he said.

The second day started with the Plenary Talk of Ms. Asuna Yoshizawa. She's from Kyoto University. She mentioned the importance of communal peace-building. Indeed, local folks can contribute to the harmony in society and this has been the result of the ethnographic study that Ms. Yoshizawa conducted in Iligan City. Later in the morning, Dr. Rey Montesclaros presented in his Plenary Lecture his views on radical democracy and provided a comprehensive history of politics in the country. 

In the afternoon, Dr. Ian Clark Parcon warmly exchanged views with Atty. Jamil Matalam of the University of Southeastern Philippines College of Law on the question of Agonism and deliberative democracy. In his Plenary Lecture , Dr. Juichiro Tanabe of Waseda University in Tokyo interacted with Dr. Maboloc on the problem of Western hegemony and how the Buddhist peace building model can be institutionalized. The day ended with a Closing Message by Dr. Maboloc where he gave a short review and lecture on the meaning of citizenship from Aristotle to William Galston.