OUR EVENTS

Month
Geraldine Javier’s “State of the Nations” Exhibition at Silverlens Gallery
Sep
10
to Oct 24

Geraldine Javier’s “State of the Nations” Exhibition at Silverlens Gallery

Join Silverlens Gallery for State of the Nations, the first U.S. solo exhibition of renowned Philippine artist Geraldine Javier. Currently central to her practice is “eco-printing,” a laborious, hand-based technique of monoprinting by pressing the sap and pigment of leaves, roots, flowers, and bark directly into paper or fabric, which is then overlaid with intricate embroidery. Javier’s exhibition will be on view from September 10 through October 24, 2026.

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Environmental Crisis in Southeast Asia: Politics, Misrule, and Resistance
Oct
22
to Oct 23

Environmental Crisis in Southeast Asia: Politics, Misrule, and Resistance

  • NYU Wagner – Main Event Space, Room 101 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN for a conference that brings together scholars and practitioners to examine the politics of the environmental crisis across Southeast Asia—a region where socio-ecological ruptures are not aberrations but products of longstanding structures of extraction and governance failure.

Speakers include: Naser al Haq, Ward Berenschot, Art Blundell, Pai Deetes, Jessica DiCarlo, Brian Eyler, John Gershman, Erik Harms, Thuy Ho, Sidney Jones, Gwen Latoza, Yifei Li, Munawar Liza, Danny Marks, Dian Patria, Natchaya Pichetsatha, Frances Seymour, Jewellord “Jojo” Nem Singh, Dewi Suralaga, Eve Warburton, Piyaporn Wongruang, and Kevin Woods

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Burmese Buddha Biography: Weathervane for Changing Times
Oct
23

Burmese Buddha Biography: Weathervane for Changing Times

  • Northern Illinois University – Altgeld room 125 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Burma Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the School of Art and Design, the Art Museum, and the Department of History at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Lilian Handlin, Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s Cognitive Aesthetics Media Lab at Harvard University. In this talk, she will discuss the Burmese biography of Buddha.

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Critical Minerals, Contaminated Rivers: Confronting Unregulated Mining in Mainland Southeast Asia
Oct
27

Critical Minerals, Contaminated Rivers: Confronting Unregulated Mining in Mainland Southeast Asia

Join the Stimson Center for a panel discussion on why unregulated mining is expanding in mainland Southeast Asia despite widespread awareness of its impacts. Speakers include Pianporn (Pai) Deetes, Executive Director of Rivers and Rights; Kevin Woods, Research Associate at Chulalongkorn University, and Regan Kwan, Southeast Asia Program Research Analyst at the Stimson Center. Brian Eyler, Senior Fellow and Director of the Southeast Asia and Energy, Water, and Sustainability Programs at the Stimson Center will moderate the discussion.

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Accretion in Death: The Labors of Botany and the Archives of Science
Oct
27

Accretion in Death: The Labors of Botany and the Archives of Science

Join the Harvard University Asia Center for a talk by Kathleen Gutierrez, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Drawing on death notices, missing-persons reports, and other bureaucratic records, Dr. Gutierrez explores how the deaths of scientific workers and the efforts of their widows to document their lives generated an archive that offers a different view of colonial botany in the nineteenth-century Philippines.

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Breaking the Rules of War: Crossing Lines of Faith and Ideology in Việt Nam
Oct
27

Breaking the Rules of War: Crossing Lines of Faith and Ideology in Việt Nam

  • School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Columbia University Weatherhead East Asian Institute for a talk by Luna Nga Thị Howard, Amerasian activist and entrepreneur, and writer Anna El-Eini. Luna will discuss her experience growing up in Vietnam following the war as a woman born of a Vietnamese mother and a Black US serviceman father. Anna will discuss how she and Luna were forced to face existential questions about the Vietnam War head on, including the suffering on both sides, forgiveness versus justice, loyalty through political division, and national identity as a catalyst for war.

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The Philippines in ASEAN: 60 Years of Engagement and Commitment
Oct
27
to Oct 28

The Philippines in ASEAN: 60 Years of Engagement and Commitment

  • ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a panel reflecting on 60 years of Philippine engagement with ASEAN as well as the opportunities and limitations of regional cooperation in advancing Philippine security, development, and welfare. Panelists include Anna Mae Tuazon, independent ASEAN engagement advisor, and from the Department of Political Science at the University of the Philippines Diliman: Edcel John A. Ibarra, Assistant Professor; Matteo Piasentini, Senior Lecturer; Aaron Abel T. Mallari, Assistant Professor; Dr. Virgemarie A. Salazar, Assistant Professor; Emmanuel Alba, Teaching Associate, and Angelie Genotiva, PhD student.

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Mỹ Documents
Oct
29

Mỹ Documents

  • Columbia University – CSER Seminar Room (420 Hamilton) (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) at Columbia University for a book talk by Kevin Nguyen about his 2025 novel Mỹ Documents, followed by a discussion with CSER’s Writer-in-Residence, Marie Myung-Ok Lee.

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Indonesia in Global Value Chains: Understanding the New Economic Imperialism
Oct
30

Indonesia in Global Value Chains: Understanding the New Economic Imperialism

  • Northern Illinois University – Peters Campus Life Building room 100 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Department of Sociology at Northern Illinois University for a talk by Intan Suwandi, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University. She will discuss the exploitation of Indonesian labor in global value chains dominated by multinational firms from the Global North.

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Six Thousand Migrants, Two Ships and One Spy: Southeast Asia and the Making of Shenzhen
Nov
16

Six Thousand Migrants, Two Ships and One Spy: Southeast Asia and the Making of Shenzhen

  • NYU Wagner – Lafayette Conference Room, 2nd Floor (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN for a talk by Taomo Zhou, Associate Professor and Dean’s Chair in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore. In this talk, Dr. Zhou presents a simultaneously global and local history of Shenzhen by tracing how the city’s development was entangled with China’s Cold War engagements with Southeast Asia.

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Pagkilala: Honoring the Heritage and Impact of Filipino Scientists
Oct
22

Pagkilala: Honoring the Heritage and Impact of Filipino Scientists

Join Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU and the Association of Filipino Scientists in America for a night of science, food, culture, and celebration. Speakers include Dr. Christian Gloria, Associate Professor and Deputy Chair of the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health; Fatimah Mamalapat Coppin, medical student at the CUNY School of Medicine; Andrian “Adi” Gajigan, Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University; Jaimee-Ian Rodriguez, Commissioning Editor in the STEM publishing industry, and Dr. Michelle Saoi, Senior Scientist in the Proteomics and Metabolomics Core Facility at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

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Strategic Supply Chains in Southeast Asia
Oct
21

Strategic Supply Chains in Southeast Asia

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Robert Walker, Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute who works as an economist in the Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre. This talk explores the geopolitical dynamics across Southeast Asia’s strategic supply chains and provides a sectoral deep dive into the following sectors: semiconductors, critical minerals, solar panels, and electric vehicles and batteries. Dr. Akhmad Bayhaqi, Senior Analyst at the APEC Policy Support Unit, will moderate the discussion.

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Vietnamese Boat People Story Slam 2026: “Code-Switch”
Oct
21

Vietnamese Boat People Story Slam 2026: “Code-Switch”

Join Vietnamese Boat People at Think!Chinatown Studio for their 7th Annual Story Slam, an evening of live storytelling, community, and connection. This year's Story Slam theme is about living between two languages — the mistranslations, the code-switching, the words that don't survive the crossing, and get lost or found somewhere in between.

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Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia
Oct
20

Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia

  • NYU Wagner – Lafayette Conference Room, 2nd Floor (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN for the book launch of Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Ward Berenschot, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam.

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Archaeology and the Making of Ifugao History
Oct
19

Archaeology and the Making of Ifugao History

Join NYSEAN, NYU Department of Anthropology, NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, and Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU for a panel on archaeology in Ifugao in examining how knowledge about the past is produced and shared. Speakers include Stephen Acabado, Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, and Marlon M. Martin, Executive Director of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement.

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Filipino American History Month Little Manila Parade and Block Party
Oct
18

Filipino American History Month Little Manila Parade and Block Party

  • 41st Avenue between 69th and 70th Streets (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

This Filipino American History Month, the Office of Assemblymember Steven Raga is proud to host the first-ever Filipino American History Month Little Manila Parade & Block Party in Woodside, Queens. This gathering brings together over 40 community organizations, local businesses, and stakeholders. Join NYSEAN and Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative’s table at the Block Party.

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Saving Asia’s Threatened Trees: From Assessment to Action
Oct
16

Saving Asia’s Threatened Trees: From Assessment to Action

  • Northern Illinois University – Peters Campus Life Building, 100 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University for a talk by the Morton Arboretum's Kate Good, research manager, and Amy Byrne, strategic partnerships manager. They will explore how researchers assess threats to tree species and translate their findings into collaborative conservation action.

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Reimagining Filipino Brooklyn
Oct
15

Reimagining Filipino Brooklyn

Join the Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History for a panel exploring how contemporary historians, artists, and community members have worked to remember and reimagine this largely forgotten chapter of Brooklyn’s past. Panelists include Michael Menor Salgarolo, Assistant Professor of History at Bard College and founder of UNASSIMILATED Walking Tours; Claro de los Reyes, actor and filmmaker behind Sands Street, and Caroline C. Pasion, chair of the New York Public Radio’s Community Advisory Board.

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Tagasaló o Nagsasalo? Precedents and Consequences of Intergenerational Support in Later-Life Filipino Families
Oct
15

Tagasaló o Nagsasalo? Precedents and Consequences of Intergenerational Support in Later-Life Filipino Families

  • NYU Silver School of Social Work – Parlor Room (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join NYSEAN and Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU for a talk by Dr. Kent Jason Cheng, assistant professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Cheng will discuss the precedents and consequences of both giving and receiving intergenerational support among older Filipinos.

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Southeast Asia Between China, the United States, and a Changing Global Order
Oct
14

Southeast Asia Between China, the United States, and a Changing Global Order

Join the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) for a panel exploring how Southeast Asia can navigate intensifying U.S.–China competition while advancing its own economic and strategic priorities. Speakers include Gita Wirjawan, former Indonesian Minister of Trade and Honorary Senior Fellow at the Center for China Analysis (CCA), and Amb. Craig Allen, former U.S. Ambassador to Brunei Darussalam and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at CCA. Kevin Zongzhe Li, Fellow at CCA, will moderate the discussion.

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Performing Vulnerability: Risking Art and Life in the Burmese Diaspora
Oct
14

Performing Vulnerability: Risking Art and Life in the Burmese Diaspora

  • New York University – 20 Cooper Square, 4th floor (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU for a talk by Dr. Emily Hue, associate professor of Ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Hue will discuss her recent book on how diasporic Burmese artists navigate the intricate intersections of art, politics, and humanitarianism. Dr. Linda Luu, an interdisciplinary scholar of US empire, race, and therapeutic culture, will moderate the discussion.

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Out of Sight, At Sea: Migrant Labor and the Hidden Worlds of Global Seafood
Oct
13

Out of Sight, At Sea: Migrant Labor and the Hidden Worlds of Global Seafood

Join the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies for a talk by Beatrice Zani, Associate Research Professor at French National Centre for Scientific Research. Drawing upon more than four years of ethnographic research in Taiwan, Indonesia, and Singapore, the talk explores the lives of Southeast Asian migrant fishers illustrating how labor takes shape across  shifting maritime environments in which legal authority and accountability are fragmented.

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Redistribution Without Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Ethnic Wealth Redistribution in Malaysia, 1970–2024
Oct
11

Redistribution Without Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Ethnic Wealth Redistribution in Malaysia, 1970–2024

  • ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute – Seminar Room 2 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Dr. Edmund Terence Gomez, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at the Faculty of Business & Economics, Universiti Malaya. Dr. Gomez will discuss the political economy of ethnic wealth distribution in Malaysia from 1970 to 2024, including the interplay between state institutions, corporate ownership, and market access.

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Lee Kuan Yew Goes Global?
Oct
9

Lee Kuan Yew Goes Global?

  • University of Michigan – Weiser Hall 110 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan for a talk by Say Jye Quah, Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University. This lecture explores the contradictions of Lee’s global legacy, situating his political thought, movements, and interventions within international trends.  In this approach, his “original sin” is no longer the detention without trial, but his role in legitimizing the Vietnam War.

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Khmer Objects in Motion: Provenance, Dispersal, and Repatriation?
Oct
8
to Oct 9

Khmer Objects in Motion: Provenance, Dispersal, and Repatriation?

Join the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) and the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) Siem Reap Center for a full-day online seminar bringing together more than 30 scholars, archaeologists, museum professionals, provenance researchers, heritage practitioners, and legal experts from around the world. Through a series of case studies, the seminar will explore the complex journeys of Khmer objects and the questions that emerge when we try to reconstruct their histories.

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Music and Theatrical Traditions in Southeast Asia and its Diaspora
Oct
7

Music and Theatrical Traditions in Southeast Asia and its Diaspora

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for a webinar by Dr. Yuan-Hsin Tung and Dr. Ben Fairfield, professors in the Department of Ethnomusicology at UH-Mānoa. They will discuss the current status of the tradition they research and trends of the theatrical and musical forms in Southeast Asia and beyond. Dr. Ricardo D. Trimillos, Emeritus Professor in the department, will moderate the discussion.

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Tỳ Bà Hành…But Alas There Was No Music
Oct
3

Tỳ Bà Hành…But Alas There Was No Music

Join the Brooklyn-based music nonprofit FourOneOne for a ca trù concert by Anh Vo, a Vietnamese choreographer and writer whose work is inspired by their experiences with Downtown New York experimental performance, Hanoi performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Vo will give an unabridged performance of Tỳ Bà Hành (琵琶行 Pipa Song) by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi, a Tang dynasty poem that probes the parallel feelings of exile and loss of status experienced by a demoted government official and an aging female musician.

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Historical Maps and Trade Systems in Maritime Pacific: 17th to 19th Centuries
Oct
2

Historical Maps and Trade Systems in Maritime Pacific: 17th to 19th Centuries

  • Northern Illinois University – Peters Campus Life Building, 100 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (NIU) for a talk by Richard Pegg, Director and Curator of Asian Art at the MacLean Collection. In this talk, Dr. Pegg will examine maps created during the 17th to 19th centuries in order to better understand complex trade systems in today’s East and South China Seas, such as: the red-seal, Manila, Siam, Fujian, Zheng family, silver-silk, rice-silk, tribute, Muslim, Portuguese, British and Dutch systems.

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When Psychology Fails: Suicide Prevention, Religious Authority, and the Making of National Policy in Indonesia
Oct
2

When Psychology Fails: Suicide Prevention, Religious Authority, and the Making of National Policy in Indonesia

Join the Harvard University Asia Center for a talk by Dr. Sandersan Onie, Lynch Family Foundation Research Fellow in Global Health Equity at at the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. In this talk, Dr. Onie reflects on a decade of work in Indonesia and other low-resource settings in order to discuss suicide prevention in the country.

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Rain Shadow Cultures: The Mekong Committee and the Taming of Cambodia’s Agrarian Engine, 1945-1973
Oct
1

Rain Shadow Cultures: The Mekong Committee and the Taming of Cambodia’s Agrarian Engine, 1945-1973

Join the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) for a talk by Thom Brown, PhD Candidate at Northern Illinois University and CKS Dissertation Research Fellow. This webinar examines the creation of the United Nations-sponsored Mekong Committee and the tensions between development efforts and local understandings of water, floods, and livelihoods.

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Expectations and Emerging Structures: Perspectives from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone
Oct
1

Expectations and Emerging Structures: Perspectives from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone

Join the Stimson Center for a talk by Tay Zar Myo Win, PhD candidate at Deakin University, and Tint Zaw Hein, Chancellor of Let Pen Community College. Together, they will discuss local perspectives from Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone on the resistance, suffering, and emerging governance structures in the region following the coup.

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Passion and Compassion: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Marra Lanot
Sep
30

Passion and Compassion: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Marra Lanot

  • NYU Wagner School of Public Service – Main Event Space, Rm. 101 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU and NYSEAN for a celebration of the life and work of poet, essayist, and feminist Marra PL Lanot, who passed away last month. We invite you to listen to and read some of Marra’s poems. All are welcome to share stories about and memories of the radiant, generous, and brilliant Marra, who was a friend, mentor, and inspiration to many Filipino writers, artists, critics, and activists.

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Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in Our Time
Sep
30

Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in Our Time

  • Annenberg School for Communication – Room 109 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania for a screening of Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) directed by Cypri Dale and Dandhy Laksono. This investigative documentary exposes the human cost of the world’s largest forest-conversion project: 2.5 million hectares of Papua turned into biofuel plantations. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Rianne Subijanto about the film and the Nusantara podcast series on The Dig.

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Maritime Exceptionalism in Action: Jurisdictional Uncertainty and Inter-agency Competition in Indonesia’s Commercial Fishing Sector
Sep
29
to Sep 30

Maritime Exceptionalism in Action: Jurisdictional Uncertainty and Inter-agency Competition in Indonesia’s Commercial Fishing Sector

  • Australian National University – McDonald Room, Menzies Library (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the Indonesia Project at the Australian National University for a talk by Michele Ford, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney, and Benni Hasbiyalloh, lecturer in International Relations at Paramadina University. This webinar will assess the impact of the doctrine of maritime exceptionalism in the world’s largest archipelagic state.

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From Demographic Leverage to Democratic Voice: Youth Mobilization and the Future of Philippine Politics
Sep
29

From Demographic Leverage to Democratic Voice: Youth Mobilization and the Future of Philippine Politics

  • ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute – Seminar Room 2 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a panel on the potential for engaging the youth in order to promote democratic renewal and resilience in Philippine politics. Speakers include Dr. Elma Laguna, Professor at the University of the Philippines Population Institute; Francis “Kiko” Aquino Dee, Executive Director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, and Rafaela “Paeng” David, President of the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party.

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Governing from the Margins: The Philippine Vice Presidency and the Road to City Hall
Sep
28

Governing from the Margins: The Philippine Vice Presidency and the Road to City Hall

  • ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute – Seminar Room 2 (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Join the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute for a talk by Atty. Leni Robredo, the 14th Vice President of the Philippines, serving from 2016 to 2022 and current mayor of Naga City in the province of Camarines Sur. Dr. Aries Arugay, Visiting Senior Fellow and the Coordinator of the Philippines Studies Programme at ISEAS, will moderate the discussion.

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