Papers by Marco Stefan Lagman
Philippine Social Sciences Review, 2012
Informal settlements in the past decades have become ubiquitous features of the Philippine urban ... more Informal settlements in the past decades have become ubiquitous features of the Philippine urban landscape that are commonly perceived in a negative light in Filipino popular culture. This paper puts forward a countervailing argument that more than being places of blight and despair, these communities, in reality, can not only be considered as the product of the urban poor’s need to access a scarce resource (i.e., living space) but also as spatial outcomes of a disadvantaged group’s continuing resistance against the state and the more socioeconomically advantaged sectors, particularly with respect to how resources in society should be distributed. Through key informant interviews and field observations in the informal settlements of Lookan, Mehan and Labrador1 in Quezon City, I argue that the methods employed by the residents of informal communities enable them to appropriate for themselves urban space that they do not legally own, and in the process utilize, develop, manage, and pr...
The Journal of history, 2013
The 19th century Philippines have been described by historians as a period of rapid and widesprea... more The 19th century Philippines have been described by historians as a period of rapid and widespread socioeconomic change. A particular feature of this transformation was the increase of recorded crimes in the country, particularly in more urban areas such as Manila. Of the many offenses considered illegal, there were certain forms of gambling that the Spanish colonial government considered as petty crimes. This paper seeks to recreate the typical “gambling environment” that the Guardia Civil Tercio encountered during the arrests that they made from the early decades of the 1880s well up to the 1890s. The review of selected Juegos Prohibidos documents reveals details of these crimes, which include information as to which places in Manila did these illegal gambling activities occur, at what time of the day were these carried out, and what were the characteristics of the usual petty gamblers. These reports also indicate how members of the Guardia Civil dealt with the people whom they ar...
Historical accounts of the Philippines by foreign travellers in the nineteenth century provide st... more Historical accounts of the Philippines by foreign travellers in the nineteenth century provide striking depictions of the richness of the country’s aquatic resources and the dependence of the early Filipinos on fisheries products for their sustenance. Despite these descriptions indicating their integral role in the everyday lives of Filipinos, there are very few archival documents that reflect the importance of both fish produce and fishing among Spain’s colonial subjects in the 1800s. This study is a preliminary inquiry on the information and insights that could be gathered from the Pesquerias de Manila (Fish Corrals of Manila), a bundle from the Philippine National Archives that deals specifically with the fish enclosure licenses that were issued in several towns that were part of the Province of Manila from 1881 to 1884. An examination of these documents provides a glimpse of the rules and regulations with respect to the issuance of corral licenses and the responsibilities that w...
The Journal of history, 2016
Tondo, Manila, has long been a poster child of the Philippine government’s social amelioration pr... more Tondo, Manila, has long been a poster child of the Philippine government’s social amelioration programs, particularly with respect to urban poor housing. While such may be the case, it can also be argued that certain housing projects, for different reasons, are reflections of the state’s failure to provide decent shelter to the underprivileged. This case study on the Vitas Tenement Housing Project (VTH) in Tondo seeks to illustrate an example of the long drawn out and potentially failed struggle of some urban poor groups that seek to claim for themselves what has become an increasingly scarce, contentious and elusive resource – urban residential land. Using documentary sources, key informant interviews, field visits to the site as well as theories in the fields of land use and disaster research, this study intends to show the evolution of the VTH and the situation of its residents from its early beginnings during the Diosdado Macapagal administration in the early 1960s to the presen...
The analysis of historical documents can be used as a means of revealing aspects of a society tha... more The analysis of historical documents can be used as a means of revealing aspects of a society that may otherwise be overlooked. In this regard, this study attempts to reveal certain features of Pampanga society and Spanish colonial policies and regulations pertaining to land during the latter part of the nineteenth century that can be examined from selected Protocolo and Fincas Urbana documents from the Province of Pampanga. Using concepts from the discipline of geography and land use, this study intends to show the growing importance of real property among Kapampangans both as an item of increasing value and as an object that can be handed down to their heirs. Careful study of these documents also helps uncover the variety of ways in which Kapampangans use their land assets as a commodity that can be employed as collateral or a resource that can be utilized as a direct input in agricultural and aquacultural production and as a platform for commercial and residential activities. Mor...
Starting in the 1960s, traffic congestion became a staple part of Manila’s history. Rapid urbaniz... more Starting in the 1960s, traffic congestion became a staple part of Manila’s history. Rapid urbanization, century-old thoroughfares, and large-scale migrations to Manila are just some of the reasons for the worsening traffic conditions. During the Marcos Era, the academe, practitioners, government agencies, and various organizations produced plans, position papers, and transport documents that sought to understand, assess, and perhaps provide possible solutions. Using data available in the libraries of University of the Philippines Diliman, this research note seeks to provide an initial survey and preliminary review of transport materials that documented and proposed solutions to the traffic congestion in the city of Manila from the 1960s until the 1980s.
Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints
The Journal of History, Feb 6, 2014
Philippine Social Sciences Review, Nov 12, 2012
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Papers by Marco Stefan Lagman