Resource Person
Is “Paring Bert” to many friends in his academic, activist and artistic ministry. As a Jesuit, he has worked with labor groups and joined poets’ circles in Manila before completing his PhD in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London). In his 25 years as a priest, his ministries and publications have covered diverse engagements, including anticorruption, indigenous people’s rights advocacy, peace communication, parish work, academic teaching and research, and even pastoral ministry to cancer survivors. He is now spearheading the establishment of the Apo Governance and Indigenous Leadership Academy (AGILA) in Mindanao, while teaching Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue at the Loyola School of Theology and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ateneo de Manila University. His most recent, Nabighani, is a collection of his Tagalog translations of mystical and religious poetry.