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The Lady President Who Can:
Dr Emerlinda Ramos Roman

She could; she can; and she thinks UP can and we can. We believe her.

They urged her to run for President of the University of the Philippines because they thought the job was meant for her and that she could beat the odds. And she did. She became the 19th UP President, the very first lady to occupy that position.

She has the academic credentials. She is a product of UP Rural High. She graduated with a BSA degree from UP Los Baños in 1972, masteral degree in Agribusiness Management from UP Diliman in 1977, and a doctorate degree in Business Administration also from UP Diliman in 1989.

She has the experience. In between, she taught business administration and through the years held different positions: faculty regent in 1995, University Secretary in 1988-1991, Vice Chancellor in 1985-1988 and Chancellor of UP Diliman in 1991-1993, 1999-2002, and 2002-2004. She established the Diliman Interactive Learning Center (DILC), Center For International Studies (CIS), Computerized Registration System (CRS), and Research Dissemination Grant Fund (RDGF), which energized the international publication and presentation of papers by UP faculty.

And in those many years she won several awards, including Outstanding Professor, Outstanding Alumnus for Public Service (College of Business Administration), Outstanding Alumnus for Academic Administration (UP Los Baños), and Outstanding Citizen of Los Baños Award for Academic Administration (Municipal Government of Los Baños).

In her term as President, she is enervated with her belief that UP can maintain its stature as a center of excellence and culture, that UP can strengthen its position as the leading university in R&D in the country – a national university in the 21st century – and eventually in the region, that all UP campuses can develop to the stature of UP Diliman, and that UP can develop as a community of scholars with academic credentials comparable with those in the best universities of the world.

She can write and she can edit. She has published papers on, among other subjects, management control, human resource management, administrative policy, and organizational behavior. She has written these books: Cases on Strategic Management in the Philippine Setting (UP Press), Metro Manila In Search Of A Sustainable Future: Impact Analysis Of Metropolitan Policies For Development And Environmental Conservation (UP Press). She has co-edited three books assessing the leadership of three Philippine Presidents.

She can count many significant achievements: faculty development and faculty welfare programs, academic program improvement, modernization of Diliman’s laboratories and learning facilities, research productivity improvement, and technology infrastructure development in UP Diliman.

She believes in a UP that can continue to be both home and haven for those who can dedicate themselves to asking questions, those who can be honest in their search for answers and those who can go on and not expect honor or gratitude but only the opportunity to do more.

Her most immediate challenge is: Can she defend a controversial new charter that will redefine UP as a state institution generating its own resources without necessarily becoming commercial? We believe she can.

Know that as a manager, she is a consensus builder who will listen graciously and silently to all sides, but she can be forthright when she needs to.

She thinks she can inspire UP to reengineer its own bureaucracy to get rid of a lot of inefficiencies in order to provide better and more efficient services to its constituents.

She is going to be the Centennial President of UP in 2008, and that is where she thinks we can contribute. We can help raise funds to help elevate the University of the Philippines to world-class status.

With her, we can all dream.

By Frank A Hilario, 7 June 2006,

3 July 2006