Volume 10, Number 1 (2026)

Challenging Insights from the Margins (Gerlie Caspe-Ogatis)

Congruent to the present political climate in our country, this 2021 issue is rich with socio-political ideas from authors who devoted their writing by analyzing the complex nature of human relationships involving power or authority. Political analysts around the world are concerned with rooting out causes of fascism, and this journal performs its part by contributing to the existing literature related to it. Also, included in this journal issue are articles showcasing the affluence of the Filipino tradition. Being true to the journal’s policy of appreciating diversity through acceptance of topics that are interdisciplinary in content, majority of the featured articles are critical to different issues with regards to the socio-political landscape of our society. I am honored to present the content of Mabini Review Journal 2021 issue. This particular volume offers a wide variety of topics ranging from politics, culture, economics and even sports analysis. The articles featured are the following: Digital Politics by Marck Zaldy O. Camba and Mark M. Gatus; Disrupting Liberal Democracy by Artchil Fernandez; Filipino Branding Pandayan Bookshop by Ma. Janella Gillian C. Sayson, Marife D. Villalon and Analiza D. Resurreccion; Kagamitan ng Eupemismong Meranaw at Tungkuling Panlipunun Nito by Edna M. Alon; Formalistikong Paglalandas sa Ginto’t Pilak (2021) nina Hidilyn Diaz at Eugene Evasco Tungo sa Pagpapahalaga sa Kinestetika at Palakasan ng Kababaihang Pilipino by Axle Christien Tugano, and The Role of Intellectuals in Shaping Hegemony, Consent, and Political Emotion, by Oliver A. Dueza, Gerlie C. Ogatis and Anna Josa T. Ortiz. In Camba and Gatus’ article titled, Digital Politics, the authors discourse focuses on the influences of digital media in shaping the political perception of citizens in the Philippines. Using the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard on hyperreality, they show their critical stand on the implications of proliferating political propaganda using the social media as a platform of information dissemination to the population. Focusing their analysis in particular to the so-called die-hard supporters of the incumbent president in our country, the authors discovered that Facebook becomes the main medium where they stage their persuasion tactics. Dubbed as DDS or Diehard Duterte Supporters, these political hardliners exhausted their convincing powers in the social media platform, targeting particularly Facebook users because of its wide range of influence due to its large number of users. This, in turn, converted the social media as a simulation tool in framing the content of their political propaganda. The authors also included pressing social concerns in our land as examples of how influences are made in one’s formation of socio-political view. This article will inspire the readers to be keen in their analysis on what they see in all social media outlets before they render judgment to a certain issue and so as not to fall prey to the pretenses of its users. Artchil Fernandez centered his analysis in exploring the reasons behind the phenomenal rise of Rodrigo Duterte in his article titled, Disrupting Liberal Democracy. With the inclusion of many studies, he thoroughly enumerated grounds that landed Duterte into the highest seat in office as the president of the land. One of the hypotheses he advanced was a potential populist revolt against elite democracy. The revolt is even intensified by Duterte’s appeal to the mass by packaging himself as one of them. This can be rooted further to the failure of EDSA people power revolution to meet popular expectations, categorized by the author in this study as passive revolution. The result of which is a condition that offers no change in the political landscape of the country. In the mind of the public, this failure went beyond restoring democratic institutions and the figure of Duterte as a disciplinarian yet accommodating leader becomes a promising view to the observing mass. He took advantage, further, of the common feelings of people by articulating their powerlessness using rhetoric they could relate to. This article is filled with provocative ideas that can help the reader unmask the reason behind the populace support to the leadership of Duterte. The article of Resurreccion, Sayson and Villalon, Filipino Branding sa Ika-2 Siglo: Pagsusuri sa mga Estratehiya ng Pandayan Bookshop, discusses how the Filipino identity is being promoted in the business strategy of a locally owned bookshop company. It holistically included in its analysis how the business operates in many aspects. Despite the diverse nature of promotional strategies, the company provided room for promoting the Filipino distinctiveness by intentionally including it in their operational mandate. This is evident in the way Pandayan bookshop labels their arrangement of books and other materials, they are particular in highlighting the value of the Filipino identity by applying concepts derived from renowned Filipino authors like Prospero Covar. The company also exemplifies the use the Filipino language in their marketing strategy by naming most of their brands in Filipino. Thus, this article will help inspire the readers to appreciate a simple fact that even in economics, there is always a way to promote the Filipino identity. It can even be strengthened by using our own language in employing a specific business strategy. The author Edna M. Alon’s article Kagamitan ng Eupemismong Meranaw at Tungkuling Panlipunan Nito is a cultural study on the symbolic role of euphemism in Meranaw culture and how it is related to the activities performed in the socio-cultural aspects of the community. The use of euphemism in language is reiterated in this study as an illustration of the sensibility of the Meranaw culture in dealing with other individual’s feelings or emotions. It is observed that euphemism is also a way of protecting others from a painful utterance, and the author of this study concretized her claims further by attending and observing different activities or rituals in their society i.e marriage, peace, settlement, and peace assembly. This article only proves the rich traditions of our land that can be emphasized as well through the dynamic use of our language. Axle Christien Tugano has done a good review of women’s essential place in sports as they contribute to the upliftment of the dying dignity of our country in the area of athletics which can be read in his article Formalistikong Paglalandas sa Ginto’t Pilak (2021) nina Hidilyn Diaz at Eugene Evasco Tungo sa Pagpapahalaga sa Kinestetika at Palakasan ng Kababaihang Pilipino. He emphasized the important role of women in bodily kinesthetic, also as a way of breaking the gender myth that strength is always a representation of the male culture and females are generally seen as a symbol of weakness in many aspects. The winning achievement of these women is a powerful step to move out from the cultural inferiority of the female figure. This article offers a promising view for the constant striving of our culture to destroy the stigmatized role of women in our tradition as historically low value. Their success is enough contribution in uplifting our country’s dignity by bringing back glory to the dying culture of sports, also a hopeful step to open better venues of support for women’s future endeavors. Oliver Dueza, Anna Josa Ortiz and Gerlie Ogatis featured a research article that is also socio-political in nature. In their article The Role of Intellectuals in Shaping Hegemony, Consent, and Political Emotion, they went back to analyzing potential causes of the failure on the part of the proletariats into becoming revolutionaries by using Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. Despite Karl Marx’s prophecy that the sufferings of the workers will eventually convert them to form avenues of fighting back their oppression by revolting against the system of capitalism, its failure can be accounted for many factors, one of which is the failure to form collective emotions that will bind them together. This article explores in many ways the surviving tactics of capitalism and exposes reasons too for the passive conformity of the workers to its whims and power. The authors then brought the focus of their analysis in the Philippines and suggested that there is an important role that the Filipino intellectuals must fulfill to inspire the revolutionary spirit of the workers. As such, the content of this study is helpful in identifying reasons behind the passivity of workers to wage revolt against the system of oppressive working conditions. We are indeed lucky that despite the challenges we are now facing at present, our scholarly pursuits never leave us stunted – we remain optimistic in producing diverse research outputs. This issue is a manifestation that we are bringing good results in our effort to be consistently critical in analyzing topics concerning different areas of socio-political conditions. These articles present challenging insights from the ground, as the authors focus their analyses on the issues of the marginalized and the neglected sectors of our society.