This collection of articles discusses the dynamics of public policy, governance, and contemporary social issues in the context of developing countries, with a primary focus on the health, economic, democratic, gender, and environmental sectors. Studies from the Philippines highlight how individual, structural, and work environment factors influence the political perceptions of public health workers, which in turn impact bureaucratic performance and ethics. Meanwhile, a number of studies from Indonesia evaluate the effectiveness of public policy in various sectors, such as malaria control in the Riau Islands Province, cheap market operations to curb inflation in East Belitung Regency based on William N. Dunn's policy evaluation framework, and the implementation of urban waste management technology policy in the city of Depok. Other articles examine broader normative and political issues, including the polemic over the revision of Indonesian National Army regulations from the perspective of civil-military relations and democracy, as well as feminist critiques and the maqāṣid al-sharī‘ah approach to polygamy permit regulations in order to assess gender justice in government policy. Comprehensively, these articles show that the success of public policy is largely determined by the quality of its formulation and implementation, its sensitivity to democratic values and social justice, and the suitability of the policy to the local context and community needs in the Philippines and Indonesia.