An Akbayan Representative in the 14th Congress of Republic of the Philippines, Bello is also a senior analyst of the NGO Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines.

As a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist, he is one of the leading critics of the current model of corporate-driven economic globalization. Bello’s books include Global Finance: Thinking on Regulating Speculative Capital Markets (2000) and The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalisation and Resistance (2001); The Anti-Development State: the Political Ecoonmy of Permanent Crisis in the Philippines (2004); and Dilemmas of Domination: the Unmaking of the American Empire (2005). His articles have appeared in numerous periodicals including Review of International Political Economy, Third World Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Race and Class, Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Monde, Guardian, Boston Globe, Far Eastern Economic Review, and La Jornada. He is currently a columnist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Foreign Policy in Focus.