Thirteen distinguished UP Diliman (UPD) faculty were conferred the title Professor Emeritus by the UP Board of Regents at its 1376th meeting on Nov. 25.
Five faculty came from the social sciences and law cluster (SS&L); the arts and letters cluster (A&L) and the science and technology cluster (S&T) each had three faculty members conferred the title; while the management and economics cluster (M&E) had two.
The UPD College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (CSSP) had the most number of new professors emeriti with three, followed by the UPD College of Engineering (COE) with two.
SS&L. The faculty members from the SS&L were Eduardo C. Tadem, PhD of the UPD Asian Center; Ricardo T. Jose, PhD, Josefina N. Natividad, ScD, and Nimfa B. Ogena, PhD of the CSSP; and Sylvia E. Claudio, MD, PhD of the UPD College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD).
Tadem is a professor of Asian studies and convenor of the Program on Alternative Development, University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies. He has been active in several progressive civil society and social movements. He has 150 publications in books, academic journals, and periodicals on various political economy and social issues.
A prominent historian, Jose is one of the country’s foremost scholars on the Second World War in the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific. He specializes in military and diplomatic history, with a focus on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. In 2019, the Metrobank Foundation conferred upon him a Metrobank Foundation Outstanding Filipino award.
A former director of the UP Population Institute (UPPI) and noted demographer, Natividad has published extensively on the topics of social science and health, sociology of ageing, adolescent reproductive health, HIV/AIDS research, distance education, and evaluation research. Among her recent projects was the 2013 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study conducted along with Ogena, her colleague at the institute and fellow professor emeritus.
Ogena has been with UPPI since 1997 and served as its director from 2002 to 2005. Since 2013, she has been serving as the chairperson of the Inter-agency Committee on Migration Statistics of the Philippine Statistics Authority. She was instrumental in the conduct of the first ever 2018 National Migration Survey in the country. She was a recipient of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Balik Scientist Award, and received the following recognitions, among others: the 2002 Gawad Chancellor Para sa Pinakamahusay na Mananaliksik in the Social Sciences and Law Cluster of UPD, and the 2012 Achievement Award from the National Research Council of the Philippines. Her domains of expertise are population and development, technical demography, population projections, and quantitative research methods.
The former CSWCD dean (2018-2020; 2020-2023), Claudio is a civil society leader and professor at the CSWCD Department of Women and Development Studies. She co-founded the Likhaan Women’s Center Inc., a non-governmental organization providing health education and training, community organizing and reproductive health services to urban poor women.
A&L. Meanwhile, those from the A&L were Benjamin I. Cabangis of the UPD College of Fine Arts (CFA); Elizabeth L. Enriquez, PhD of the UPD College of Mass Communication (CMC); and Josefino J. Toledo of the UPD College of Music (CMu).
A professor at the CFA Department of Studio Arts, Cabangis is a respected abstractionist with 24 solo exhibitions and more group exhibitions here and abroad. He graduated with a BFA in painting in 1978, the same year he received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award.
The first UPD Information Office director (1994-1996), Enriquez is a mainstream media practitioner with 17 years of experience. She teaches media history, media theory, political economy of broadcasting, media literacy, and media, gender and sexuality at the CMC Department of Broadcast Communication. She wrote pioneering and extensive works on Philippine broadcast history. Enriquez authored the book Appropriation of Colonial Broadcasting: A History of Early Radio in the Philippines, 1922-1946 and the monograph with video documentary Radyo: An Essay on Philippine Radio (CCP 2003).
The music director/conductor of the UP Symphony Orchestra, Toledo is a faculty member at the CMu Department of Composition and Theory and executive director of the Miriam College Center for Applied Music. He is noted for premiering works of Filipino composers as well as other Asian composers and has conducted concerts in Japan, Indonesia, Australia, and China.
S&T. Alberto V. Amorsolo Jr., PhD and Benito M. Pacheco, PhD of the COE; and Maria Patricia V. Azanza, PhD of the UPD College of Home Economics (CHE) belong to the S&T.
Known fondly to colleagues as “Doc A,” Amorsolo is one of the respected faculty members at the COE Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering. An expert in both metallurgical and materials engineering, he has completed research on shape memory alloy synthesis via electroplating annealing route, lead-free solder alloy systems, and titanium silicide thin films, among other topics.
Pacheco is the founding director of COE Institute of Civil Engineering (ICE) and is currently a professor and member of the ICE Structural Engineering Group. For more than 25 years, he has been giving back to the country as he shares and simultaneously enhances his expertise in engineering, science and technology particularly in disaster risk management.
Azanza is a professor of food science and nutrition at the CHE and carryies the rank of UP Scientist 3. Azanza was director of the DOST’s Industrial Technology Development Institute (ITDI) from 2015 to 2018, where her mentorship proved instrumental to ITDI securing three project grants worth almost P46 million.
M&E. Finally, the two other UPD professors emeriti were Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, PhD of the UPD School of Economics (SE); and Alex B. Brillantes Jr., PhD of the UPD National College of Public Administration (NCPAG), who belong to the M&E.
A professor of economics at the SE, Gochoco-Bautista was the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Sterling Chair Professor of Monetary Economics at the SE who has published widely in the areas of monetary economics and open economy macroeconomics. She was first named UP Scientist in 2008, and again as UP Scientist III for 2021-2023.
In 1991, she was given the Outstanding Young Scientist Award by the National Academy of Science and Technology.
Gochoco-Bautista is an associate editor of Asian Economic Papers and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic Surveys, Japan and the World Economy, all SSCI-indexed journals, and Thailand and the World Economy, a Scopus-indexed journal.
She began her academic career as a tenure-track assistant professor of economics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and stayed for three years before choosing to return to the country to join the faculty at the SE in 1987.
Gochoco-Bautista served as member and chair of the advisory panel of the ASEAN +3 Macroeconomic Research Office, an international organization involved in regional macroeconomic surveillance based in Singapore (2017-2021), and as senior economic advisor at the Asian Development Bank’s Office of the Chief Economist (2010-2015).
The NCPAG dean for two terms (2004-2007; 2007-2010), Brillantes has held important government posts that included being commissioner at the Commission on Higher Education (2013-2017) and executive director of the Local Government Academy at the Department of Interior and Local Government (1992-1998). His specializations include anti-corruption, comparative public administration, decentralization, development and underdevelopment, and governance of institutions and development.
The University Faculty Manual defines “professor emeritus” as a title for life and is conferred upon retired faculty members in recognition of their exceptional achievements and exemplary service to the University. Among the benefits granted to a professor emeritus are a one-time P150,000 monetary grant, lifetime privileges, health service privileges and free admission to cultural shows in UP, among others.