Tanabe, Rennesland headline successful 14th SES Conference

The 14th Social Ethics Society Conference was successfully held from February 1-2, 2024 at Haven's Dew Resort, Davao del Sur. The event was formally opened by Fr. Dexter Veloso, PhD, President of the SES. Dr. Alex Niez of Cor Jesu College delivered a welcome message on behalf of the host. Dr. Roger Bayod, the convenor, gave the rationale of the event.

The plenary lecturers who spoke in person were Dr. Juichiro Tanabe (Waseda University), Dr. Anton Heinrich Rennesland (UST), Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc (AdDU), Dr. Lemuel Sayao (Cor Jesu), and Dr. Ian Clark Parcon (AdDU). Dr. John Weckert (Charles Sturt University), Dr. Daniel Mishori (Tel Aviv Univesity) and Dr. Layne Hartsell (Chulalongkorn University) gave their lectures via Zoom.

The Board of Directors of the SES awarded Fr. Dexter Veloso with a Plaque of Commendation for his outstanding leadership and commitment that enabled the organization to expand nationwide and engage internationally. The SES presently has a membership of more than a hundred academics and researchers from various colleges and universities across the country.

A total of 51 academics participated in the annual gathering, including faculty, students, and researchers from Ateneo de Davao University, Silliman University, the University of Mindanao, MSU-IIT, North Valley College, Southern Christian College, UM Digos, Holy Cross of Davao College, Davao de Oro State College, Queen of Apostles College Seminary, MSU-GenSan, St. Francis Xavier College Seminary, SPAMAST, Cor Jesu College, Leyte Normal University, Eastern Visayas State University, Visayas State University, and Barauen Community College.

Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc, Chair of the SES Board, presided the election of officers. Fr. Dexter Veloso was elected to another term via unanimous motion. Masters and undergraduate students also delivered excellent papers on the theme Peace and Conflict Studies, Emerging Technologies, and Ecological Sustainability. The participants visited several tourist spots in Bansalan and Kapatagan, Davao del Sur after the conference, including Berries Farm, Ped's Coffee, Lake Cometa, Wine Woods, and River Song.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc: An Intellectual Biography

By Menelito Mansueto (MSU-IIT) Christopher Ryan Maboloc is a Davao-based Filipino scholar known for his work in Social and Political Philosophy, Bioethics, Radical Democracy, and the Ethics of Technology. He is an Associate Professor at Ateneo de Davao University and a Visiting Professor at Silliman University. Dr. Maboloc was an ASAP - Yale Global Justice Fellow where he was mentored by the renowned philosopher Thomas Pogge. An Erasmus Mundus scholar, the author was trained in political party building and democratic governance at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Bonn and Berlin, Germany. Dr. Maboloc finished AB Philosophy, cum laude, at Ateneo de Davao University under a Yuchengco Foundation scholarship. He has a Masters in Philosophy from Ateneo de Manila University. He holds an Erasmus Mundus Masters in Applied Ethics from Linköping University in Sweden and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He was the Erasmus Mundus (EM) Representativ...

Statement of the SES expressing its opposition to the proposal to remove Ethics in the GE Curriculum

We, members of the Board of Directors of the Social Ethics Society, express our strong opposition to the proposal to remove ethics in college. Such move is bereft of merit and is ignorant as to the value and purpose of the teaching of the course, which is thoroughly rooted in the integral and critical function of higher education. The proposal to transfer it to Senior High School deprives college students of the teaching of ethics as a professional course, which is crucial in their civic engagements and the pursuit of a democratic society that can only be grounded in responsible citizenship and critical thinking. The direction of Edcom and its advisers from the technical panels of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) reduces our whole education system into a mode of creating docile workers who will constitute the labor force that will serve the whims and interests of a capital intensive and consumer driven globalized neoliberal economic order. It only breeds our subser...

Statement of the SES BOD Chair

The Social Ethics Society was founded in 2010 by the late Dr. Romulo Bautista, a professor at Ateneo de Davao University who did his doctorate on Marx at the University of Madrid in Spain, and Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc, then a young teacher at Ateneo de Davao. The first SES Conference was held at the University of Mindanao. Its original membership was only 15, consisting mainly of the masters students of the two founders. While in the peripheries of academia, the SES pursued its goals of helping teachers in Mindanao develop their craft in ways that is consistent with philosophy as an exercise of the human will and as the highest expression of the human intellect. When its proponents presented the concept, it was suggested that the Union of Philosophical Societies and Associations in the Philippines (USAPP) will lobby for a new bill that will professionalize philosophy in the country. That was in 2018. Top UST philosophy academics, upon the invitation of Peter Elicor, attended t...

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