Rivera was educated at the University of the Philippines Diliman where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1966, and a master's in the same subject in 1982.

He also chaired the Center for People Empowerment in Governance from 2013 until his death from pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2024, at the age of 77.

The hybridity of this socio-economic architecture in a context of a weak state formation often captive by robust traditional social forces (clans, families) has caused and sustained the inequitable distribution of economic and political power in the Philippine society (described by Walden Bello as an "immobile class structure that is one of the worst in Asia")[2][3] and the harnessing of democratic efforts towards patently conservative objectives such as obstructionist policies on land reform, inadequate social service, and anti-labor inclination among others.

Rivera also faulted this unique feature for the continuing developmental morass that afflicts the Philippines, despite the fact that most of its neighbors in the Southeast Asian region have significantly achieved substantive development as newly industrialized economies.

Temario later lived in Japan, where he was a professor of comparative politics at the International Christian University in Tokyo.