“All scholars should be activists, and all activists should be scholars” was Professor Emeritus Eduardo Tadem’s sharp response to Joe Quintero, a young geographer from York University who posed a simple yet provocative question that I paraphrase thus: “How did our activism influence our scholarship?” 

The question was raised in the panel on “Post-Pandemic Southeast Asia: Systemic Perils and Peoples’ Alternatives” at the 5^th Biennial Southeast Asian Studies in Asia (SEASIA) Conference held at the University of the Philippines Diliman last July 18-20. The panel served to introduce the work of the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies, Program on Alternative Development (UP CIDS AltDev) and to “soft launch” the book “Reimagining Development in Southeast Asia: Alternative Practices from the Grassroots and Social Movements.”

I had been tasked with participating in the panel to present a work-in-progress case study for an upcoming third volume to the Alternatives practices in Southeast Asia and also with pushing me to make some progress in my graduate thesis. The panel was composed of Assistant Professors Jose Monfred Sy and Benjamin Velasco, Dr. Tadem, Rafael “Arvin” Dimalanta, and myself. 

Ivory tower

Sy opened the panel discussion with AltDev program’s theoretical framework and introduced the idea of scholar-activists as “being politically engaged researchers [whose task] is to draw critical vocabularies and replicable designs from practices that already stand as alternatives to the dominant systems.” The concept is embraced as an overt critique to the detachment of the academe and mostly western institutions from social criticism and their state of privilege—their being in an “ivory tower” removed from the rest of society, especially the marginalized. 

In the East, or the Global South, scholarship and activism are often epistemically intertwined. It was fitting that UP hosted this year’s SEASIA conference with the theme “De/Centering Southeast Asia.” The conference was “intended to be a platform for centering Southeast Asian scholarship within Asia, by shifting one’s analytical position away from a dominant center towards the periphery to strengthen expertise, amplify voices, and resist subordination in these peripheries,” the conference brief read, and continued: 

“De/Centering challenges dominant narratives and perspectives historically centered in the ‘West’ and its gaze on Southeast Asia, and highlights the diverse and complex experiences, histories and cultures of the region as told by Southeast Asians themselves.”

Fitting venue

The conference venue was fitting not only because of UP’s proud tradition as a bastion of academic freedom and activism in the Philippines and to an extent in the region, but also because these traditions are realized by the conference organizers who, in their youth, were radicalized by the signs of the times and Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship. 

I felt that the theme was addressed to UP as well, who cherishes international accolades and its standing in the world rankings yet fails to “decenter” itself enough to issue criticism where and when due and is blind to the injustice it commits against its own community. Contrary to the activist tradition, its administrators allow state forces to conduct surveillance operations, pays lip service to issues of democratic governance and autonomy, allow the corporate commercialization of university services, and are inattentive to labor concerns such as the contractualization arrangements—that is, no employee-employer relations—binding university researchers and administrative staff. 

I am convinced that the activist mantra “Serve the People” needs to be seen in action. If UP wishes to honor and excel in its mantra, there must be cascading reforms that embrace the will of the academic community rather than the whims of its governing bodies. Enacting the activist tradition means integrating with and establishing itself among the people, providing for their necessities, and being humbled that power is created through people’s action. 

‘Iskolar ng bayan’

In the panel discussion, each of us spoke briefly on our notions of scholarship and activism. Being the youngest in the panel, I talked about being a student under Rodrigo Duterte’s regime including the gross mismanagement of the pandemic which, I felt, took away the best years of our youth. I recalled entering UP as a freshman exactly 10 year as well as the burdens of being a “iskolar ng bayan,” an institution continuously being defunded by the state. I was fortunate enough that the Kabataan (Youth) Partylist was able to win and secure the “Universal Tertiary Education Act” in 2017 which covered my studies until I graduated in 2019. I recalled as well how, after graduation, I became a “full-time” activist in the youth sector and assisted in organizing various campus publications in Metro Manila up until the pandemic. 

I first met Arvin Dimalanta in 2018 while accompanying some of our junior editors for the student paper Sinag to establish contact with the urban poor struggle in Sitio San Roque. Later, Save San Roque (SSR) was established as a network of volunteer architects, engineers, educators, artists, writers, and students in solidarity with the community. 

Dimalanta’s panel presentation was on SSR’s history in the heart of the Quezon City Triangle, its decadelong struggle and contentions with the local government’s housing plan, which culminated in a people’s community development plan that has since been used in lobbying efforts to the local government and national agencies. His research serves as an example of putting the community’s interest at the foreground as a means to reach a broader audience and to legitimize their claims, histories, and struggles. 

Both needed

Velasco, who served as AltDev co-convenor until late last year, recalled his long involvement as an activist with the labor sector before he joined the faculty of the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations. “Activism needs scholarship,” he said. “Both are needed in a rigorous and robust movement enlightened by debate, discussion, and innovative ideas.” He turned the question around to ask: “How can a scholar remain objective when they are embedded within movements that they are studying?”  Belonging and growing within a movement is a better arrangement than a scholar merely extracting data from the community for academic advancement, he said. 

Velasco’s second point addressing the question on alternatives reflects deeply on the question of how we can help sustain these practices. In his panel presentation, he noted that the gains and losses of the urban poor, the agroecology movement, and the ecozone union workers are mostly confined in their respective spaces and serve as responses to a particular phenomenon or societal condition they aim to address. The question then is how to further consolidate these alternative practices to enable the emergent movement to challenge the status quo.

Such has been the research question of the Program on Alternative Development since it was convened in 2017 as one of the 12 research programs of the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies. As coordinated by Tadem, the ongoing project of “Alternative Practices in Southeast Asia” has documented more than 50 case studies from across the region, most of which are articulated in the vocabularies of community organizations, unions, confederations, and support groups. These case studies represent four alternative practices—economic, social, political, and cultural—that have long existed in isolation in communities within context or geography. 

In his seminal work “Weapons of the Weak,” James C. Scott wrote: “Resistance is rarely dramatic or newsworthy; it’s the quiet, persistent actions of individuals that create a barrier reef against oppressive systems.”

Our program’s ongoing mission is to document these alternatives on the ground and to assist in the emerging regional network called the Movement on Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (or Massa), an outcome of people-to-people convergence in various conferences including the Asean Civil Society Conference/Asean People’s Forum and the Southeast Asian Regional Conference on Alternatives. 

To continue Tadem’s response to the question on scholarship and activism: “Scholars need to be activists so that they are not confined in an ivory tower.  They need to leave the university regularly to learn from the grassroots their real problems. Scholars are tasked to facilitate a process to communicate with each other. In the same vein, activists should also be scholars in order to adopt a critical mind to immediately reflect on the activist work they are engaged in, in order to improve and to respond to challenges on the ground.”

Ryan Joseph Martinez is part of the program staff of UP CIDS AltDev and a graduate student in sociology at UP Diliman.

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