Social Physics

You don’t forget the first time you hold a rambutan in your hand—that bright red thing with wild green hair. It looks like it’s about to wiggle away if you’re not careful. When my cousins and I were kids, we’d pretend they were baby monsters or tiny alien eggs. We’d chase each other around with them, below the summer sun when Castillejos Street was still alive with youthful games. Here in Quiapo, you can find them stacked in small mountains on the side of the church, right where the vendors shout “Bili na, mura lang, matamis! ” next to stalls selling tuyo ,  herbal oil, statues of saints, and phone cases. The fruit glows under the Manila sun like something not meant to be real. When I was younger, I didn’t like touching them. Too weird, too hairy. I thought they’d sting me. But my Lola would buy a small plastic bag of them after mass, slipping a few coins to the old woman who sold them. Back at home, she’d sit with my Lolo who just got home from tricycle work. She had a small bowl ...

SOUNDSCAPE AND SURVIVAL A Sensory Autoethnography of Living in Quiapo, Manila Written as an exercise for Socio 182, Qualitative Approaches in Sociological Research, University of the Philippines Diliman Quiapo, located at the heart of Manila, is often portrayed through images of dense crowds, religious devotion, and street commerce. But beyond what is seen are the sounds, particularly the layered, persistent, and often chaotic soundscape, that contributes to the shaping of life in this district. This essay explores the everyday experience of living in Quiapo through the use of sound, drawing from personal observations and embodied knowledge. Using a sensory autoethnographic approach, I examine how sound mediates social interaction, signals boundaries, and becomes an essential tool for navigation and survival in the urban environment.  In this writing, rather than treating noise as a backdrop, I attend to the phenomenon of sound as a meaningful and structuring force. The goal is to ...

Guided by the foundations of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) named the New People’s Army (NPA), continues to battle their 54-year long protracted people’s war in the countryside. Even with the continuous civil war that the government imposes to the rebellion, their numbers have not dwindled with time. The death of their Founder Jose Maria Sison has not made them lose sight of what is to be won: national democracy and a socialist tomorrow. Amidst the economic and political turmoil of the 21st Century Philippines, the Maoist NPA continue to persist with their Communist Revolution.  What sets the New People’s Army from the Philippine Army is its long history of struggle against colonialism and imperialism. Whereas the Armed Forces of the Philippines is bound to the military history of serving foreign powers such as Spain with the Guardia Civil and the United States with the Macabebe Scouts, the NPA derives its history from ...

The Sociological Imagination of My Life A Transfer Essay to the BA Sociology Program of the  University of the Philippines Diliman Word Count: 500 I am struggling to write this personal essay on my transfer from the University of the Philippines Los Baños to the University of the Philippines Diliman. Perhaps I have been too indulged in the sociological imagination of it all – Charles Wright Mills’ postulation of how the self will always be tied to the larger society. A year of sociology in the academe is enough to change a person and his view of the world; he will always be filled with the torment that even if he has knowledge on the structures and ills of society, he alone cannot possibly change it. Man is Atlas, condemned to hold the burden of the world. And here I am, not only tormented with this knowledge but also of my own situation. I have applied to the UP System in the hopes of achieving quality education for free, given that the only capital my family and I have is m...