Research

As the national university, we champion and support innovative research that addresses the country’s most pressing challenges.

30 Jan 2024

UP Manila

Review explores how genetic and social factors contribute to the development of gender-based cancer differences among Asians

Cancer is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally. Sex differences in cancer are evident in death rates and...

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29 Jan 2024

UP Los Baños

Researchers develop an ergonomic keyboard that eases typing in English, Tagalog and even Taglish

In the Philippines nowadays, English and Tagalog languages are alternately used for formal written communications;  in a school setting, English...

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26 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

Study introduces an easy physics experiment for students to do at home, providing learning opportunities with minimal teacher involvement

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a challenge for laboratory classes to keep students engaged amidst the limitations of a fully remote...

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24 Jan 2024

UP Manila

People who are new patients or seeking clearance or referral for endocrine-related symptoms are more likely to opt for teleconsultation

Telemedicine employs the use of technology to increase access to health care. This is especially relevant in developing countries where...

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23 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

While Visayan women were depicted as “most civilized” in colonial photography, the photos still upheld a gender ideology promoting male superiority

Significant works have been published on American colonial photography in the Philippines, which primarily focus on the depiction of Filipinos...

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22 Jan 2024

UP Manila

To improve how we diagnose, prevent and treat allergies, it is crucial to better understand how different factors interact with each other

Allergies are overreactions of the body to harmless allergens and are one of the most chronic conditions worldwide. Atopy or...

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18 Jan 2024

UP Los Baños

A majority of world’s largest flowers teeter on the edge of extinction

The genus Rafflesia, which includes the world’s largest flowers, has aroused curiosity among scientists for centuries and features prominently in local...

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17 Jan 2024

UP Mindanao

Utilizing chitosan as an edible coating presents a promising solution for prolonging the shelf life of fresh produce

The development of diseases and decay in vegetables after harvest limits their shelf life and saleability. To control this, proper...

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16 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

An easy-to-build computer-based spellchecker designed to help foreign language learners in writing provides error-specific feedback with explanations and examples

In second language (L2) acquisition, writing is no longer perceived as a mere consequence of learning, but is now treated...

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15 Jan 2024

UP Manila, UP Open University

A novel method has the capability to precisely identify the author of unknown texts, particularly news articles

This study tackles the challenge of figuring out who wrote anonymous text, like online articles, in an age when there...

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11 Jan 2024

UP Manila

The main obstacles to a “good death” during the Covid-19 pandemic were strict limitations on comforting and communicating with patients

Dying is not a medical experience but also a social and psychological one. We would like to ease the suffering...

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10 Jan 2024

UP Manila, UP Open University

Researchers build a smart computer system that can accurately predict issues when two drugs are taken together

Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) can be a serious problem in healthcare, causing around 30% of unexpected and dangerous medication issues. Over...

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Research

The study is mainly concerned with giving an opportunity to Filipina labor migrants in Hong Kong to voice out their resistance to the ways by which they are predominantly characterized and valued only in terms of their worth as foreign domestic workers. Along with their labor status as their identity marker in Hong Kong, they also have to contend with how they are largely perceived based on their gender, class, and ethnicity. This complex way of defining who they are often leads to a marginalizing and dehumanizing treatment. However, as the cases in my study show, these Filipinas resist this confining characterization by insisting on a sense of self and a way of life that transcend their employment category. Social media plays an important role in this endeavor since these platforms offer ways of using language, signs, and images that have the potential to represent them in a different light. Through an analysis of the multimodal ways they use social media, I highlight how they question the limits imposed upon them by dominant ideas of who a Filipino woman is in Hong Kong and practice their agency as human beings who have control over their identity and their lives.

My research highlights the complex process of contending with limiting ontological configurations experienced by labor migrants in the case of Filipina labor migrants in Hong Kong. What the study hopes to achieve is to demonstrate how these Filipinas resist the confinements that their employment status, gender, class, and ethnicity impose upon them via their discursive engagements on social media platforms. While these cases exhibit a sense of representational agency afforded by these new forms of media, particularly as regards their potential to counter dominating characterizations of Filipinas in Hong Kong based on their labor, what the study argues is that online and offline lives are necessarily intertwined. My research contributes to the growing body of knowledge and continuing conversation on critical discourse in new media and labor migration, framed in the intersectional relationships of gender, class, and ethnicity.

Author: Alwin C. Aguirre (Department of Broadcast Communication, College of Mass Communication, UP Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.22688