THIS APRIL I appeared in Woven Voices‘ podcast Migreatives. I was in a conversation with UK-based actors and theartre makers Nadia Cavelle, Zachary Fall, and Ben Weaver-Hincks.

In this episode of Migreatives I shared bits about my personal life and my writing: my childhood in the Philippines under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and the Martial Law regime, writing during post-EDSA 1986 People Power Revolution, and up to the return of fascism in the archipelago in 2016 when Duterte came to power and I was both writing in theatre, writing my novels, and my publishing essays online and in other media platforms.

This is the first time I’ve been into a podcast (the form is new to me) and the first time also for me to publicly speak about my experiences in the UK (I did not reveal all to protect some people who were with me and still living in the Philippines surviving the pandemic and the regime) writing under the fascist Duterte regime and my life here in the UK.

One thing that I learned in life as a Filipino playwright writing in Duterte Philippines is to not just to speak truth to power but to speak truth to power at the very moment when it is already necessary to confront a fascist evil regime.

You can listen to the podcast episode by clicking the image below. Trigger warning: there were parts of our conversation where we talked about the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines between 2016-2018 under the Duterte government and then the violence of the para-military group Ilaga (in tandem with the Philippine Army) that massacred Muslim Moros in Southern Philippines during the Marcos regime the 70’s.