Abstract
This study examines diskarte as a vernacular grammar of survival through which Filipino gig
workers navigate the uncertainties of platform-mediated labor. Based on participatory qualitative research with ride-hailing, delivery, and freelance workers in the Philippines, the study
conceptualizes diskarte as a fluid, relational, and ethically inflected form of agency. Workers enact diskarte through communicative calibration, affective regulation, relational reciprocity, and ethical boundary-work, revealing ambivalence as a normal operating condition rather than a contradiction. They continually weigh livelihood, obligation, care, and moral judgment while negotiating algorithmic control, reputational risk, and economic precarity. The article extends the Diskarte Continuum Framework and shows how diskarte offers a culturally grounded lens for understanding how Global South workers act resourcefully under constraint, with implications for Critical Discourse Analysis and relational–moral forms of reasoning.