The UP Board of Regents at its 1394th meeting on Oct. 29 has approved the appointment of Noel Christian A. Moratilla, PhD as dean of the UP Diliman (UPD) Asian Center (AC).
The associate professor at AC, whose research interests are resistance literature and Marxist studies, critical pedagogy and testimonial writings, diaspora and postcolonial theories, succeeds Henelito A. Sevilla Jr., PhD who served as dean from August 2021 to 28 October 2024.
According to the AC website, part of Moratilla’s team as college executive board are Joefe B. Santarita, PhD (college secretary and head secretariat of the Tri-College PhD Philippine Studies Program), Jocelyn O. Celero, PhD (assistant to the dean for external and cultural affairs), Michelle R. Palumbarit, PhD (assistant to the dean for curriculum and quality assurance), Ariel C. Lopez, PhD (assistant to the dean for research, publication, and information), and Maria Cecilia T. Medina, PhD (assistant to the dean for administrative services and AC coordinator for the Tri-College Philippine Studies Program).
As AC dean effective Oct. 29, Moratilla will serve as a member of the Tri-College PhD Philippine Studies Program Council, along with the deans of the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy.
He wrote several journal articles, essays, reviews, book chapters, and the book Abject Bodies (2020). In 2019, Moratilla and Santarita co-edited the 2018 Philippine Development Report. His latest journal article, Fugitive Witnessing: Stories of Indonesian Migrant Workers, was published in 2023 in the Social Science Forum 39 (102). Also involved in creative endeavors, Moratilla’s latest work is AI Apocalypse, published in 2023 in the Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine 72.
Moratilla’s term of office is until 28 Oct. 2027.
In a related development, Ma. Joy V. Abrenica, PhD will be serving her second term as UPD School of Economics dean (29 October 2024-28 October 2027).