Trust, culture, institutions, and public life
Communication scholarship grounded in the Philippines, in conversation with Southeast Asia.
I study how people judge, sustain, and contest relationships with institutions when protection, recognition, accountability, or correction remains incomplete.
My work connects political communication, cultural sociology, and qualitative inquiry, with human flourishing and human suffering as its central concerns.
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Reading, writing, and sustained inquiry. Illustrative stock image.
Forthcoming book
Trust Cultures and the Politics of Relational Legitimacy: Rethinking Trust from the Global South
Routledge · Forthcoming, 1 December 2026
How do cultural expectations and relationships shape judgments of institutional authority? My forthcoming book develops this question from Philippine experience and the Global South.
Next public conversation
13 November 2026 · Thammasat University
A public lecture and pre-publication book launch in Bangkok.