FAR FROM MANILA - POLITICAL IDENTITIES ON A PHILIPPINE ISLAND

Based upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Philippine islanders of the central Visayas, this article documents the different ways, so metimes complementary, sometimes supplementary, in which different per sons on the island of Siquijor construct their social identities. The author questions whether and to which extent such social identities ma tch the embeddedness of the administrative framework that is imposed b y the central government in Manila. Confronted with a plurality of ide ntities, whether national, provincial, or local, the islanders tend to refuse to choose and to live amid apparent and culturally acceptable contradictions that only reflect the seemingly permanent effervescence of their social situation.