This article provides a description of Bugis and intra-island migration, analyzing the pattern of migration when Bugis settlers move from their home villages of Bone to the new frontier area of Baras in West Sulawesi, Indonesia. I argue that unlike migrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their present-day contemporaries, Bugis in Baras are permanent migrants referred to as those who have mallékké dapûrêng (“moved the kitchen out,” in their language). This ethnographic study in Baras presents an alternative interpretation of migration patterns among the Bugis. The findings of this study indicate that farmers are the main participants in this permanent migration. Bugis in Baras commit to mallékké dapûrêng because of their traditional value of siri’ (self-esteem and honor), further influenced by environmental, economic, social, and political factors.

There is one issue in Jose Rizal’s life that historians have debated on several occasions but remains unsettled. That issue is whether Rizal, on the eve of his death, re-embraced the Catholic faith and disassociated himself from Masonry. The matter is controversial because parties on both sides are affiliated with an organization that promotes moral values and the pursuit of truth. The pro-retraction camp is represented by the Jesuits, the archbishop of Manila, and a few other members of the Catholic hierarchy. Since they are all ordained priests, they are assumed to be truthful in their pronouncements. Their opponents are the members of Masonry, an organization that promotes brotherhood, integrity, decency, and professionalism.

This paper resurrects the retraction controversy in the light of the emergence of another primary source that speaks about what happened to Rizal on the eve of his death. This document was never considered in the history of the retraction controversy because it was made available to researchers only in the past decade. The author of the report is a credible eyewitness because he was physically present in the vicinity of where Rizal was detained. His narrative is lucid and contains details that cast doubt on the credibility and reliability of earlier primary sources on which previous narratives were based. This document needs serious consideration and should be included in the discourse on Rizal’s retraction.

In Thailand, from the beginning of this century, policies on aging, health promotion reform toward enlightening the public, and administrative decentralization have been taking place, leading to the reinforcement of biopolitics in elderly care. “Community” became a useful locus and tool to carry out governance of health and elderly care. At the same time, within state-initiated programs there is local agency at work, which mobilizes existing social networks while allowing the formation of new connections based on the old. Drawing upon observations from fieldwork in a suburban district in Chiang Mai Province, I argue that biosocial communality emerges from the interaction between the administration and local agents, and demonstrate how this operates by acting on the interface of the family and the community. I first look into how policies of health and elderly care have made use of the community or the discourse thereof. Then I introduce the case of a specific subdistrict to see how such top-down governance actually operates on the ground, how local networks can be reactivated, and, ultimately, how we find, among the participating elderly and caregivers, emerging biosocial communality at the interface of the family and community.

Despite its much-touted agenda to fight poverty and corruption, the Aquino administration was not able to produce good results during its term at the national level. However, some political forces and policy reforms that emerged with the administration achieved remarkable change at the local level. This paper explores the case of Siquijor Province, where an entrenched political dynasty was defeated in the 2013 and 2016 elections by candidates supported by the Liberal Party and its allied forces, Akbayan, and analyzes factors that brought this change by focusing on activities of People Power Volunteers for Reform, the impact of bottom-up budgeting projects, and the mobilization of powers of the national government through personal relationships. It also notes achievements of the Aquino administration at the local level, provides a critical perspective to the elite democracy discourse that sticks to a static view of Philippine politics, and clarifies local practices by progressive forces that confront oligarchy.