[Plenary Speech] International Harm Reduction Conference #HR23 - Melbourne, Australia

On April 16-19, 2023, I participated in the 27th Harm Reduction International Conference (#HR23) that was held in Melbourne, Australia and organized by Harm Reduction International. Gathering harm reduction advocates, scholars, and policymakers, the conference brought together over 1,000 delegates from 80 countries - including over a dozen from the Philippines.

Together with Kirsten Han (Transformative Justice Collective, Singapore), Gina Jackson (Return to the Heart Foundation, USA) and Kassandra Frederique (Drug Policy Alliance, USA), I was part of the opening plenary entitled "Challenging Systems of Oppression". In my address, I talked about the role of activism, advocacy, and scholarship in the Philippines during and beyond Duterte's drug war - as well as the need to "decolonize harm reduction". Here are some of the concluding thoughts I imparted: 

This is message that we send you from the Philippines: That even when our leaders suppress our rights and oppress our communities, there are good people in government, in the private sector, civil society, people who use drugs who work for change, pursuing activisms both loud and quiet, advocacies both urgent and enduring. 

That even when society as a whole think that drugs are evil, even when they support leaders who echo that view, there are academics, artists, various allies who try - in their own ways, to erode that view, slowly and patiently, pointing out its many contradictions.

And even at the darkest moments of oppression, there are pockets of resistance that are spelling the difference between death and life.

Inspired by the conference, I also wrote a column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled "The case for harm reduction". 

[Symposium Presentation] Coping with COVID-19: A Comparative Study on Cultural Immune Systems - Osaka, Japan

On March 4-5, 2023, I participated in an international symposium titled "A Comparative Study on Cultural Immune Systems" in Osaka, Japan, hosted by Japan's National Museum of Ethnology. As the organizers put it, the symposium aimed "to compare and analyze the ways in which the “cultural immune system” has been activated in response to COVID-19 in various Asian countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, and also consider other regions like Europe."

In my presentation, I talked about the ways in which certain COVID-19 cures figured in the ways political actors in Asia responded to the pandemic, in what I call "pharmaceutical messianism", with the following abstract that builds on my work with my research associate Vincen Gregory Yu on the subject: 

This presentation surveys some of the miracle cures or wonder drugs that were touted to treat or prevent COVID-19 in Asian countries - and analyzes the ways in which politicians and other prominent public figures in the region promoted them. While the phenomenon of ‘pharmaceutical messianism’ (Lasco and Yu 2022) has been described all over the world, this presentation also reflects on the particularities of Asian contexts that lead to the social and political efficacies of these products, regardless of their biomedical efficacy.

I would like to thank the organizers in Minkapu, including Ippei Shimamura and Sohee Che, for organizing the event and for inviting me to be part of it. 

[Presentation] - Seventh Global Symposium on Health Systems Research #HSR2022 - Bogota, Colombia

On October 31 to November 4, 2022, I attended the Seventh Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Bogota, Colombia and delivered a presentation entitled "Enabling Youth Equity in Drug War-Affected Communities in the Philippines". 

The presentation was part of a panel organized by Equity Initiative on "Increasing the voice of the unheard – south-south learning and sharing to address power imbalance and health inequity in marginalized populations" and included other Atlantic Fellows: Shehnaz Munshi (School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand), Lance Louskieter (University of Cape Town) and Somporn Pengkam (Community Health Impact Assessment (CHIA) platform in Southeast Asia). Piya Hanvoravongchai chaired the session.

In addition to presenting in the panel, I also attended the panel organized by my colleagues in the RESPOND project on "Patients on a journey: understanding the individual, social, institutional barriers to effective and people-centered hypertension care", in which my research associate Jhaki Mendoza presented about our paper on 'therapeutic itineraries'; also presenting in the hybrid session were Lia Palileo-Villanueva, Martin McKee, Maureen Seguin, Alicia Renedo, Nafiza Mat-Nasir, and Nasir Ismail.

As with the previous in-person HSR in Liverpool, it was a great opportunity to connect with international colleagues and the growing Philippine community of public health practitioners:

[Plenary Talk] 6th Filipino American Book Festival - San Francisco

On October 15-16, 2022, I attended the 6th Filipino American Book Festival in San Francisco organized by the Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA). During the first day, I joined a plenary panel with Ani Rosa Almario of Adarna House, the novelist Gina Apostol, author Reine Arcache Melvin, and the historian Vicente Rafael in sharing my thoughts about "Writing Towards the Future". Journalist Troy Espera moderated. Notably, Gina Apostol delivered a powerful keynote speech about the socio-political conditions in the Philippines:  

Only a few lead comfortable lives in the Philippines … it is a small minority whose lives are threatened with change. But it is also they whose myth-making and golden promises manufacture majority consent to their violence and their greed … It is satisfying to blame the voters, but is a problematic response to fascism’s power. I lay the blame unequivocally on the structural oppression that has produced the voters’ economic condition, which leads them to the desperate hope that Marcos will, with his absurd and incredible lies about his family’s Tallano gold, lift them out of despair.”

Overall the entire book festival was a very enriching experience, which I chronicle in my column in a piece entitled "Partaking of Filipino American experiences". I am grateful to the organizers especially Edwin A. Lozada and Christina Newhard for organizing such a meaningful activity!