On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I am pleased to announce the conferment of the rank of Associate Professor on Joachim Emilio B. Antonio, Ph.D., effective 15 June 2023.

Dr. Antonio is an award-winning playwright and published children's author. He won eight Don Carlos Palanca Awards: The Domestic Problems of Good King George (formerly entitled Gabrielle) for One-Act Play in English in 2006, Ang Ampalaya sa Pinggan ni Peepo (The Bitter Gourd on Peepo’s Plate) for Short Story for Children in Filipino in 2007, Newspaper Dance for One-Act Play in English in 2008, Sa Tapat ng Tindahan ni Mang Teban (In Front of Mang Teban’s Store) for Short Story for Children in Filipino in 2011, The Dust in Your Place for One-Act Play in English in 2012, The Last Filipino for Full-length Play in English in 2014, The Floret Road for Full-length Play in English in 2016, and exesanonymous.com for Full-length Play in English in 2017.

He was also recognized as Best Playwright in Short + Sweet Manila 2014 for his entry, Death in Ten Minutes, winning Best Play and topping the Audience Poll for Week 1. Short+Sweet is the world's largest short play festival. His plays have been staged in different high schools and universities locally and abroad. He also founded Compact Shakespeare, which fuses his compact theatre philosophy with Bard's works. In 2021, his award-winning play, The Dust in Your Place, was adapted into a short film by David Olson and his team at Cutaway Productions. The film made it one of the 13 finalists in Cinemalaya 17. In 2022, Dr. Antonio was a fellow in the 61st UP National Writers Workshop for his poetry collection, Coffeeshop Nomads and Other Poems.

Dr. Antonio obtained his AB and MA in Humanities (with specialization in History) degrees from the University of Asia and the Pacific in 2005. He received his PhD in Creative Writing from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2012. Shortly after finishing his master’s degree, he began teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the Department of Literature and the Humanities Program of the College of Arts and Sciences. He also served as the MA Humanities Program Director from January 2018 to July 2021.

Aside from teaching at the University, he regularly conducts through www.storywritingschool.com online writing workshops of his own design to participants of varied age groups. His style of delivery is distinct from both the “great-writers” approach (which relies on the teacher heavily criticizing the students’ work) and the “therapeutic” approach (which focuses merely on proliferation). He believes in “writing by design,” wherein the writer is trained to anticipate and predict a reader’s probable response to the text based on the writer’s understanding of reality and language. The goal of his workshop is for the student writer to gain the ability to put ideas onto paper and see how language choice and organization fulfill the writer’s objective.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Joachim Emilio B. Antonio on his promotion and in supporting him as he assumes the duties and responsibilities of Associate Professor of UA&P.

Dr. Winston Conrad B. Padojinog
President
University of Asia and the Pacific