Understanding Election Violence in the Philippines: Beware the Unknown Assassins of May

2021 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-519
Author(s):  
Tom Smith ◽  
Joseph Anthony L. Reyes

Despite election violence being a commonly agreed upon phenomena in the Philippines, there has been a dearth in academic research on the topic in recent years, largely due to a lack of reliable information. To address this, our article adapts recognized methods from studies such as Lindsay Shorr Newman's 2013 paper, together with Stephen McGrath and Paul Gill's 2014 research on terrorism and elections. To expose the timing of election violence, we tracked incidents relative to election dates for the period from 2004 to 2017, with the results indicating that violence increased closer to an election date, and frequency substantially increased during the 14-year period. This is the first academic journal article since John Linantud in 1998 to focus on the issue of election violence in the Philippines but through adaptive methodologies goes further, enabling national analysis. Furthermore, our findings reveal statistically significant differences regarding the types of terrorist attacks and targets when comparing election and non-election periods. We highlight complicating factors such as the majority of attacks being attributed to "unknown" actors and the complex situation during elections. The results also demonstrate that election violence in the Philippines is dominated by the New People's Army and the use of assassination. The paper makes the case for further research and the creation of a dedicated database of election violence in the Philippines and elsewhere, and evaluates the measures implemented by the government that have failed to stem election violence.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 2357-2363

Academic publication has been one of the main requirements in academic research and university ranking to seek research funding and scholarship. Mostly, the publication is published as academic journal article, book or thesis in offline and online distribution. There are variety of tools and services available today to understand academic publication data. However, existing tools is still very limited in the terms of specific institute and academics. In this study, we propose a practical tool, UTeMAIR which retrieve publication information for academic staff of specific institute from online publication repositories sites such as Google Scholar and Scopus. Specifically, UTeMAIR consists of three main components namely, crawling engine, statistical analysis and keywords analysis. The objectives of this system to retrieve and store publication record of academic staff, to continuously update the collected information and to analyze publication data for all academic staff. With the availability of an effective retrieval and analysis tool for publication data, the university can monitor scholarly information in a better way and plan towards increasing the publication index among academics and ultimately improve university visibility.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 204
Author(s):  
Charlyn Villavicencio ◽  
Julio Jerison Macrohon ◽  
X. Alphonse Inbaraj ◽  
Jyh-Horng Jeng ◽  
Jer-Guang Hsieh

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the longest recorded lockdowns in the world, the Philippines received its first delivery of COVID-19 vaccines on 1 March 2021 through WHO’s COVAX initiative. A month into inoculation of all frontline health professionals and other priority groups, the authors of this study gathered data on the sentiment of Filipinos regarding the Philippine government’s efforts using the social networking site Twitter. Natural language processing techniques were applied to understand the general sentiment, which can help the government in analyzing their response. The sentiments were annotated and trained using the Naïve Bayes model to classify English and Filipino language tweets into positive, neutral, and negative polarities through the RapidMiner data science software. The results yielded an 81.77% accuracy, which outweighs the accuracy of recent sentiment analysis studies using Twitter data from the Philippines.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Lisa Grace S. Bersales ◽  
Josefina V. Almeda ◽  
Sabrina O. Romasoc ◽  
Marie Nadeen R. Martinez ◽  
Dannela Jann B. Galias

With the advancement of technology, digitalization, and the internet of things, large amounts of complex data are being produced daily. This vast quantity of various data produced at high speed is referred to as Big Data. The utilization of Big Data is being implemented with success in the private sector, yet the public sector seems to be falling behind despite the many potentials Big Data has already presented. In this regard, this paper explores ways in which the government can recognize the use of Big Data for official statistics. It begins by gathering and presenting Big Data-related initiatives and projects across the globe for various types and sources of Big Data implemented. Further, this paper discusses the opportunities, challenges, and risks associated with using Big Data, particularly in official statistics. This paper also aims to assess the current utilization of Big Data in the country through focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Based on desk review, discussions, and interviews, the paper then concludes with a proposed framework that provides ways in which Big Data may be utilized by the government to augment official statistics.


2019 ◽  
pp. 002085231987878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie Pattyn ◽  
Sonja Blum ◽  
Ellen Fobé ◽  
Mirjam Pekar-Milicevic ◽  
Marleen Brans

Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increasingly supplemented by other actors and outside knowledge. However, the vast majority of research has concentrated on the anglophone context. Yet, countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice and merit more scholarly attention. What counts as evidence in these countries is the expert rationality of institutional representatives. The position and role of academic research in consensus-based systems is unclear, and is the focus of this article. Can we observe commonalities across consensus-style countries, or do differences prevail? We investigate two typical consensus-seeking countries: Belgium and Germany. To examine the supply side of policy advice, the article reviews current evidence regarding their policy-advisory systems. For the demand side, we present insights from a survey among federal ministerial officials. We find common trends between the two cases but their nature and extent are idiosyncratic. In Belgium, the supply of and demand for academic policy advice is comparatively lower, while the German case exhibits more change in the advisory landscape and institutionalisation of the supply of and demand for academic research. Points for practitioners   • Countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice.   • The findings suggest that there are common trends but their nature and extent are idiosyncratic.   • In Belgium, the supply of and demand for academic advice is comparatively lower.   • Germany’s policy-advisory landscape exhibits more change and institutionalisation of the supply of and demand for academic research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 238-248
Author(s):  
Mario Torres ◽  
Hazel Luyon-Tabo ◽  
Steven Salibay ◽  
Cristina Cabanacan-Salibay

AbstractThis article aims to discuss the issues about Schistosoma japonicum infection in the Philippines based on the research findings of previous studies. This includes reviews about the nature of schistosomiasis, with emphasis on its effects on children. The review also discusses the mode of transmission of the parasite, etiology, and epidemiology, and relates these factors to the persistence of S. japonicum as a major health problem in the Philippines. The efforts, preventive measures, and recommended actions of the government are also mentioned and have been taken into consideration in strengthening the eradication measures against S. japonicum. This review further analyzes the risk factors associated with the infected individuals. Some measures and practices that may contribute to the prevention of S. japonicum infection are highlighted.


Resolution of the so-called “Bangsamoro Question” rests at the heart of the peace process between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Southern Philippines, also known as the Bangsamoro homeland. Inspired by Allison and Zelikow’s conceptualization of Rational Actor Model (RAM), this paper analyzed how rational factor contributed to the conclusion of the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB) in 2014 and eventually enshrined into the Philippine Constitution through the approval of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) on July 27, 2018. This paper argued that the success of the GPH-MILF peace process does not only depend on the sincerity of the administrations of both then President Aquino III and current President Duterte, international support or commitment, pressure from civil societies and community involvement as what many commentators provided. As shown in this paper, the rational factor and its dimension significantly affected actors’ strategic interactions and the GPH-MILF peace process per se. The findings offered a new perspective for conflict-resolution and shed light on how rational dimension impacted both actors’ strategic interactions, which led to the conclusion of the GPH-MILF peace agreement. This clearly indicated that rational dimension greatly influenced GPH and MILF’s strategic interactions and thereby took flexible attitudes to resolve outstanding issues between them which consequently led to the signing of the CAB and ultimately the ratification of the BOL in 2018.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 12952
Author(s):  
Haitham Esam Rababah ◽  
Azhar Ghazali ◽  
Mohd Hafizal Mohd Isa

Fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation in the building sector is at an all-time high in line with the country’s economic growth. This scenario will increase the global CO2 emissions and large carbon footprints, thus leading to global warming. In recent years, most of the research related to the building sector has focused on the development of new techniques to reduce buildings’ energy consumption through energy conservation, energy efficiency, and the implementation of renewable energy technologies. The introduction of photovoltaic (PV) technology has become the most prominent renewable energy (RE) that can be integrated into building components. Even though the Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) has been available for decades, but its implementation in Southeast Asian countries has not gained widespread acceptance compared to European countries and other parts of Asia. This paper aims to investigate the effects and challenges of BIPV implementation in Southeast Asian Countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines), focusing on climate effects, the initial cost of PV technology, government policies, and initiatives. An in-depth literature review from past research, policies, and reports taken between 2016 to 2021 has been conducted and found that the environmental parameters directly influence the performance of BIPV systems and affect efficiency. This study pointed at Feed-in Tariff (FiT), policies and initiatives offered by the government in Southeast Asian countries are not beneficial and discourage building owners to adopt the BIPV technology or any other RE technology. Governments should revise the current policies to promote and attract more building owners to take part in the efforts to minimize CO2 emissions from the building industry.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Egwolf ◽  
O.P. Nicanor Austriaco

ABSTRACTCOVID-19 is a novel respiratory disease first identified in Wuhan, China, that is caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. To better understand the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, we have used real-time mobility data to modify the DELPHI Epidemiological Model recently developed at M.I.T., and to simulate the pandemic in Metro Manila. We have chosen to focus on the National Capital Region, not only because it is the nation’s demographic heart where over a tenth of the country’s population live, but also because it has been the epidemiological epicenter of the Philippine pandemic. Our UST CoV-2 model suggests that the government-imposed enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has successfully limited the spread of the pandemic. It is clear that the initial wave of the pandemic is flattening, though suppression of viral spread has been delayed by the local pandemics in the City of Manila and Quezon City. Our data also reveals that replacing the ECQ with a General Community Quarantine (GCQ) will increase the forecasted number of deaths in the nation’s capital unless rigorous tracing and testing can be implemented to prevent a second wave of the pandemic.


Author(s):  
Frank Bitafir Ijon

Conducts of by-elections in recent times have been fraught with a lot of security challenges. This has been as a result of the violence that characterized the conduct of by-elections in recent times in Ghana. Violence during by-elections in Ghana plays a vital role in securing election victories for political parties. In all the by-elections characterized by violence in Ghana, they were won by parties that were accused of inciting the violence. The main tenets of election violence as identified by the paper included, actors, motives, timing, consequences, and patterns. The paper adopted the content analysis method in its investigation of the two violent by-elections in Ghana. The paper revealed that there was a correlation between violence during by-elections and victories of incumbent parties. This was because, in the two by-elections understudy, those accused of starting the violence and using national security operatives won the elections. The paper also found out that by-election violence impacted negatively on Ghana’s democratic maturity in several ways, such as; low voter turnout, weakening of democratic foundation and breeding an atmosphere of insecurity. Finally, the paper also revealed that political parties especially those in government resort to violence during by-elections in Ghana because they fear losing it will mean the government was underperforming as argued out by Feigert and Norris and also because they want to add to their tally in parliament.


2010 ◽  
pp. 81-88
Author(s):  
Don Immanuel Edralin ◽  
Agustin Mercado

he fruit tree nursery accreditation scheme implemented by the Philippine Department of Agriculture has been promoted to enhance the supply of high quality fruit tree planting materials and reduce the number of dubious seedling market players. This paper examines the advantages to participating nurseries in the fruit tree nursery accreditation scheme and draws implications for possible formulation of a scheme to accredit forest tree nurseries in the Philippines. Data were collected from interviews with accredited fruit tree nursery operators and the nursery accreditation officer-in-charge in Northern Mindanao province. A major advantage of nursery accreditation is that only accredited fruit tree nursery operators can participate in the bidding process of the government seedling procurement program, which always involves a substantial volume of seedlings. As a form of advertisement, accredited nurseries are posted on the government website thus creating a wide range of market opportunities which results in increased sales. Other advantages enjoyed by accredited fruit tree nurseries include receiving free training in improving seedling production and occasionally receiving high quality propagation materials (scions and seedlings), subsidies for pesticides and fertilizers and free soil tests. Observations of advantages gained by nursery operators adopting certification have encouraged other nursery operators to apply for accreditation. Accreditation by the Department of Agriculture places emphasis on maintaining high genetic quality as well as high physical quality of planting materials. Accrediting forestry nurseries is seen as a potential policy option that can expand the supply of high quality tree seedlings in the Philippines, as has been the experience with fruit tree nursery certification.


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