UP’s pioneer sociologist Fe Rodriguez Arcinas passed away on Feb. 3.

According to the announcement of the UP Department of Sociology on its Facebook page, Arcinas was the former department chair (1983-1986), director of the UP Office of Alumni Relations (1989-1993), and officer-in-charge of the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (1988).

She “conducted research and published on pressing sociological issues such as Filipino migration in the Gulf region and contemporary forms of Filipino communities.”

Among her researches was the book chapter “A Socio-Economic Study of Manila Squatters,” in the January 1955 issue of “Philippine Sociological Review,” where she discussed the situation of post-World War II Manila squatters.

Arcinas, in her research, said, “The circumstances which brought about the existence of this socio-economic phenomenon of squatters were the circumstances of war.” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43498010?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)

She also studied the UP Diliman community in its early years in her research, “An Exploratory Study of the Socio-Economic Structure of the Diliman Community” published in the November 1955 issue of the “Philippine Sociological Review.” Arcinas described the community occupying a total area of about 150 hectares in a mostly undeveloped 493-hectare University site.

Reading her work today, one can get a fairly vivid image of UPD community in the 1950s: “Lawns of residences start right from the street curb and end at the very doorstep. As a result, children playing in the garden, on the street or on the neighbor’s lawn are a common sight. Similarly, neighbors come to feel more free to drop in for a chat or exchange views on the weather. For even more trivial matters, one may shout across lawns.” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41853349?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents) The Department also described Arcinas as a product of what used to be the joint UPD Department of Anthropology and Sociology and “Soon after, she obtained her master’s degree and joined the faculty of the same institution. Prof. Arcinas was one of the first members of the Philippine Sociological Society when it was founded in 1953.”