Research

Active Research Grant

Diverging national and digital war commemoration in the Philippines

Funded by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early Career Scientists, 2024–2026.
This research project explores the divergences between national and digital platforms in commemorating wars in the Philippines, with a focus on World War II. The project seeks to understand how different narratives and memories of these conflicts are constructed and maintained in official state ceremonies and museums versus those in digital spaces such as social media and video sharing sites.

Book Projects in Progress

I am currently developing two book-length projects that examine the political weaponization of the past and the complexities of wartime narratives:

War on History: How Duterte Weaponized the Philippine Past: Co-authored with F. Talamayan, this book investigates the strategic use of historical narratives during the Duterte administration.

Rehearsing Independence: Propaganda, Nationhood, and the Second Philippine Republic, 1942–1945: Drawing from nearly two decades of sustained research on the wartime Philippines, this project expands upon my M.A. History thesis. It analyzes the complex relationship between state propaganda and the formation of national identity during the Japanese occupation.

The Politics of Memory and Memorialization

A significant portion of my ongoing research investigates how memory is constructed, contested, and materialized in post-conflict societies. This includes a series of articles and chapters, several of which are currently under review or in progress:

The Memory of the Marcos Regime: My forthcoming work examines the manipulation of historical memory related to the Marcos era, including a co-edited book and a book chapter titled “Lies Etched in Stone: The Marcos War Myth and Memorialization in Post-War Philippines.”

Post-Conflict Memorialization in the Philippines: I am exploring the politics of memory in various post-conflict contexts, including the 2017 Marawi Siege and the shifting symbolism of the People Power shrine.

Second World War Memory: My research continues to examine the fragmented and evolving memory of the Pacific War in the Philippines, with ongoing projects on the memoryscape of Los Baños and vernacular discourses surrounding the 1945 Battle of Manila.

Heritage and Colonial Narratives

This research area investigates the construction of heritage and its role in shaping colonial and post-colonial narratives. My work examines how historical figures and sites are leveraged to create specific, often politically charged, versions of the past. Ongoing projects include a critical examination of the modern construction of heritage, as explored in the in-progress work, “Manufacturing Colonial Nostalgia: Embellishing the Past through Heritage Translocation at Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar”.