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Abstract
Rodrigo Duterte is imaged as an ideology through narratives, texts, discourses and representations which emerge in a highly contentious discursive terrain. This paper places this in two domains, namely in academic theorizing and popular culture, particularly in social media, both of which are implicated in representational politics. Academic theorizing about Duterte attempts to be objective and scholarly, but is dominated by anti-Duterte sentiments that are mainly born from liberal and critical orientations. The pro-Duterte social media is not only anti-elite but also has an anti-intellectual orientation. Social media is an effective contrapuntal in painting academic theorizing as a weapon of the anti-Duterte elites. Written using narratives drawn from an auto-ethnographic account of this author, this paper first analyzes the academic and social media domains around which myths and representations about Rodrigo Duterte are produced. It concludes by drawing from the analysis the implications to ideological and discursive bases for the maintenance of political order in Philippine society, particularly on the role of leaders in the context of the country's communitarian political culture.

A usual reading of postmodern critiques of science, progress, and the nation-state, has casted postmodernism as pessimistic, if not apolitical. In fact, it is even read as conservative, as it unintentionally enables a continuation of the status quo by its privileging of local forms of resistance, even as it is critical of grand narratives of resistance. While the privileging of micro-politics in everyday forms of resistance may enable freedom of and subversive acts by individuals, the need for more collective forms of action remains a challenge. This article offers the theory of reflexivity as a template to imagine the possibility of collective action being enabled by postmodern politics. In contrast to the relatively random, unorganized, and individualized form of micro-politics which post-modern theorists argue for, reflexivity theory allows for more organized, coordinated collective action, albeit in domains that are outside of the traditional confines of statist politics, taking advantage of postmodern venues, such as cyberspace. This essay will inquire into the applicability and implications of the theory of reflexivity in the Philippines, particularly on the transformation of random, individualized interventions in social networking sites into becoming a foundation for "cyber-collective action", thereby enabling the creation of new political communities and citizenship in cyberspace.

Modernist and integrationist theories tend to see the process of nation building as a "game" of surviving. However, the idea of a "surviving" nation, which is shaped according to the logic of the game of politics as domination, is antithetical to the organic processes of institution building consistent with the habitus of the diverse social formations which are found in the Philippines. In these organic spaces, a unified community is born not out of an idea of a subordinated "other" being eliminated, but of "others" being accommodated in the larger society. Survival is not an individualistic and Darwinian process of weeding out the weak, but as a communitarian invitation towards a shared meaning system that is drawn from positions of difference, in which the other is not subordinated, but is just different, and in which the idea of sovereignty is not colonizing the sense of autonomy of these different subjectivities. This theoretical argument will be supported by how the Philippine adaptation of the Survivor franchise, through the first season of the reality TV program Survivor Philippines, has effectively confronted the western construct inherent in the very idea of the game, as seen on how it is played in its American versions. How the game was played, crafted and interpreted in its Filipino version has challenged the Machiavellian concept of politics, and the Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest. This is done by depicting the process of building communities from the fragments of multiple identities as one in which the politics of conflict and contestation is resolved not towards elimination and assimilation of the defeated weaker "other," but of accommodation and tolerance of those who are just different.

This paper inquires into the implications of the different discursive imaginations on civil societies and the state from the perspective of the social sciences, particularly political science and international relations. It focuses on some interfaces and tensions that exist between civil society on one hand, and the state and its bureaucratic instrumentalities on the other, particularly in the domain of environment and natural resources governance in the context of new regionalisms and of alternative concepts of human security. There is now a new context for regionalism in Southeast Asia, not only among state structures, such as the ASEAN and the various Mekong bodies, but also among local civil societies coming from the region. It is in this context that issues confronting local communities are given a new sphere for interaction, as well as a new platform for engaging state structures and processes. This paper illustrates how dynamic are the possibilities for non-state domains for transnational interactions, particularly in the context of the emerging environmental regionalism. This occurs despite the dominance of neo-realist political theorizing, and the state-centric nature of international interactions.

The effectiveness and capacity by which society manages its watershed resources is mediated by different factors, namely: economic considerations—financial capital; technical and administrative capacity—intellectual capital; social governance capacity—social and institutional capital; and legal framework—political capital. The levels within which these factors can be analyzed include the macro-level, that is, the national level; and the micro-level that operates at watershed management unit. There are three foci of inquiry with regards to attempts to adopt a watershed-based approach to water resources management. First, there is a need to look into the conditions that affect the linkages between watershed resource management and the sustainability of governance and production systems. Second, there is a need to analyze the manner governance mechanisms can be "directed" towards improving livelihood sustainability and the maintenance of watershed resources. Finally, there is a need to assess the processes in which governance and production mechanisms are transformed as forest-based communities within watershed areas are integrated further into mainstream market and political structures. Corollary to this is an evaluation of the implications of these transformations in scale to watershed management, particularly to managing the resource using the watershed approach.

The following are offered as guiding principles in the involvement of LGUs in water resources management. • For LGUs to adopt an integrated, holistic approach in addressing the inherently interrelated issues of water supply planning and operation, demand management, pollution control, and watershed and ground water protection. • For LGUs to manage water not only as a social good but also more importantly as an economic good. As such, water becomes a commodity that is assessed for its scarcity value and whose distribution exists in the context of market processes, even as it is balanced by the view that water is a basic need. • For LGUs to implement a strategy to operationalize a water-pricing policy that covers the full economic cost of water production and distribution, by taking into account the opportunity cost of water where there are competing users, and the cost of externalities or negative environmental impacts. • For LGUs to uphold the principles associated with a watershed-based approach by considering the watershed as the basic unit in managing the water resources of the country. There is a need for the following mechanisms to enable LGUs to be effective managers of their water resources: • There should be support for the institutionalization of local water bodies. • There is a need to create a technical capacity and awareness among the LGUs and local communities, particularly in managing watersheds. • There should be mechanisms to enable the financial viability and sustainability of local initiatives beyond their reliance on official development assistance. This should clearly emphasize the use of market-based instruments in assessing the true value of water that would be levied on users, as well as water-related services or damages. There is a need to put in place mechanisms that require local governments to involve civil society organizations.

In Balian, the presence of indigenous institutions borne by a well entrenched and historically rooted and highly developed sociopolitical arrangement has enabled the local community to effectively link their governance and production activities to the watershed resource, despite opposition from some local political interests. The core of this is the Samahan ng Balian para sa Pagpapauwi ng Tubig, Inc. (SBPTI), a barangay based people's organization formed in 1926 with the goal of managing the water system sourced from a spring within a small watershed in the Sierra Madre Range. The historical roots of SBPTI have enabled present-day actors, with the assistance of NGO mediators, to deal with conflict and challenges, as they establish order (i.e., "govern") in their community vis-à-vis their domestic water needs. While most of the livelihoods in the community are nonresource based, considering that only a small percentage are dependent on the watershed for their immediate livelihoods, it was shown in the Balian case how local mobilization can influence those whose farming activities are within the watershed areas to take on more ecological practices. It also illustrated how people in downstream communities, if properly equipped with the correct ecological perspective on the importance of watersheds in their daily lives, could be directly involved in watershed management. It was obvious from the Balian experience that people can be directly involved in ecological restoration and protection activities in situations where they have full awareness of the opportunity costs should they do otherwise.

In the domain of environmental security, it appears that a strong civil society, one with strong social ingenuity & social capital, is a necessary condition not only for environmental security, but also for regional security in general. This paper will argue that in the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), much can be learned from the empirical experiences of Thailand & the Philippines that have established records of accomplishment in civil society participation in forest governance. Also discussed is the possible role of epistemic communities both within these countries as well as across countries in the ASEAN in harnessing institutions of knowledge to influence domestic & regional governance of forest resources. 32 References. Adapted from the source document.