I am an Associate Professor of Communication Research at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and an Assistant Professorial Lecturer at De La Salle University. My work sits at the intersection of political communication, cultural sociology, and qualitative research, focusing on how trust and legitimacy are lived, negotiated, and sustained in everyday public life.

I am particularly interested in moments when institutions falter—health crises, political scandals, and governance controversies—and how people make sense of them. Through my research, I have developed concepts such as trust cultures and scandal constructivation to better understand how publics continue to engage, judge, and endure under conditions of uncertainty and fragility.

I am the author of Navigating Trust, Journalism, and Health in the Age of Populism and have published in international journals including Media, Culture & Society and International Journal of Communication. I also serve as Vice-Chair of the Emerging Scholars Network of the International Association for Media and Communication Research.

More broadly, I am committed to building research that speaks from—and back to—the Global South while remaining engaged in international scholarly conversations.

Read my full bio here.