Skip to main content

Radical Politics in Ozamiz by Gerry F. Arambala released

 


In this book, Mr. Gerry Arambala, Chair of Philosophy at La Salle University in Ozamiz, intends to provide the narrative of radical politics in Ozamiz, using the lens of radical democracy. It is a pivotal move in Mindanao studies. He employs the theory of Chantal Mouffe and analyzes local politics based on the works of Nathan Quimpo, Paul Hotchcroft, John Sidel, and his mentor in political theory, Christopher Ryan Maboloc.

Arambala argues that Police Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido, in the same way as President Rodrigo Duterte, has changed the course of Ozamiz politics by challenging the grip into power of the Parojinogs. Using Sidel’s bossism as a vantage point, Arambala thinks that change in Ozamiz was possible because of the leadership of Espenido, who put the local bosses to task as he went into cleansing the city of its drugs and criminal elements.

Ozamiz City politics is not different from national politics. The local problems in the city reveal that it can be a microcosm of the country’s brand of democracy. The way forward is to examine how we must go beyond the antagonism and proceed to what Mouffe calls a “pluralistic agonism”. In this way, Arambala has put together a critical step in understanding how we must view the pursuit of a common ground that allows society to flourish in the name of justice, democracy, and humanity.

 


Popular posts from this blog

Christopher Ryan Maboloc: An Intellectual Biography

By Menelito Mansueto (MSU-IIT)  Christopher Ryan Maboloc is a Davao-based Filipino scholar known for his work in Social and Political Philosophy, Bioethics, Radical Democracy, and the Ethics of Technology. He is an Associate Professor at Ateneo de Davao University and a Visiting Professor at Silliman University. Dr. Maboloc was an ASAP - Yale Global Justice Fellow where he was mentored by the renowned philosopher Thomas Pogge. An Erasmus Mundus scholar, the author was trained in political party building and democratic governance at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Bonn and Berlin, Germany.  Dr. Maboloc finished AB Philosophy, cum laude, at Ateneo de Davao University under a Yuchengco Foundation scholarship. He has a Masters in Philosophy from Ateneo de Manila University. He holds an Erasmus Mundus Masters in Applied Ethics from Linköping University in Sweden and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He was the Erasmus Mundus (EM) Representativ...
Read more

Statement of the SES expressing its opposition to the proposal to remove Ethics in the GE Curriculum

  We, members of the Board of Directors of the Social Ethics Society, express our strong opposition to the proposal to remove ethics in college. Such move is bereft of merit and is ignorant as to the value and purpose of the teaching of the course, which is thoroughly rooted in the integral and critical function of higher education. The proposal to transfer it to Senior High School deprives college students of the teaching of ethics as a professional course, which is crucial in their civic engagements and the pursuit of a democratic society that can only be grounded in responsible citizenship and critical thinking.  The direction of Edcom and its advisers from the technical panels of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) reduces our whole education system into a mode of creating docile workers who will constitute the labor force that will serve the whims and interests of a capital intensive and consumer driven globalized neoliberal economic order. It only breeds our subser...
Read more

Statement of the SES BOD Chair

The Social Ethics Society was founded in 2010 by the late Dr. Romulo Bautista, a professor at Ateneo de Davao University who did his doctorate on Marx at the University of Madrid in Spain, and Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc, then a young teacher at Ateneo de Davao. The first SES Conference was held at the University of Mindanao. Its original membership was only 15, consisting mainly of the masters students of the two founders. While in the peripheries of academia, the SES pursued its goals of helping teachers in Mindanao develop their craft in ways that is consistent with philosophy as an exercise of the human will and as the highest expression of the human intellect.  When its proponents presented the concept, it was suggested that the Union of Philosophical Societies and Associations in the Philippines (USAPP) will lobby for a new bill that will professionalize philosophy in the country. That was in 2018. Top UST philosophy academics, upon the invitation of Peter Elicor, attended t...
Read more