Six years ago, I made the only recorded resignation on a question of principle in the history of the Philippine Congress, because of irreconcilable differences with the Benigno Aquino III administration supported by the party to which I then belonged, Akbayan. I resigned in protest at the administration’s toleration of corruption in its ranks despite a promise to combat it, the refusal of President Aquino to take responsibility for the loss of lives in the Mamasapano tragedy, and his entering into a new military agreement with the United States.

In 2016, I placed a run for the Senate far behind the overwhelming priority of attending 24-7 to a wife who was dying from cancer. Although I was focused on trying, without success, to keep a beloved partner alive and retreating into academic life, I did not disengage politically in the next few years. I felt, however, that my time could best be spent as a civil society activist pushing government to adopt positive policies from outside the electoral arena.

Even before Rodrigo Duterte came to power, I told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he would be “another [Ferdinand] Marcos.” In 2017, I helped bring together a coalition of organizations and individuals, Laban ng Masa, that would offer a truly progressive, socialist-oriented alternative to the current political system. Over the last five years, I have published extensively locally and globally, analyzing and documenting the atrocities perpetrated by the Duterte administration and its transgressions of democracy.