Rommel

The Philippines, CAHR, April 2024 to July 2024

Rommel B. Rodriguez is currently a professor of Philippine Literature and Creative Writing in Filipino at the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, Diliman (UP).

He has published books of short stories dealing with social and political issues. He is also the editor of various anthologies of contemporary Filipino literary works and academic journals. He was first organised while studying in UP and became active in the student movement by joining the group, Alay Sining, a multi-art based cultural organisation of student activists during the 1990s. Here he met fellow artists and activists forwarding a nationalist, scientific, and mass-oriented educational system in the country.

Having the opportunity to teach at UP, he became a member of the Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy-UP (CONTEND-UP), a group of progressive and anti-imperialist academics. He is the incumbent Vice President for Faculty of the All UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU), the sole and exclusive negotiating representative of all academic rank-and-file employees of the University. He continues to organise colleagues to be members of the local union, campaign for workers' rights, and relate labour issues in the country affecting the employees of the university. Besides being a member of CONTEND-UP and the AUPAEU, he is also an active member of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-Philippines (ACT-Philippines), the widest organisation of progressive and militant private and public school teachers in the Philippines.

Some of his current research interests include studies on the artistic productions of political prisoners, the history of prisons, and the intersections of literature and human rights. He considers writing as both ideological and political and that writers should have active participation and solidarity with the basic sectors of society, to be one with the aspirations of the Filipino people who want to change a society that is oppressive and unjust. Being a teacher, unionist and writer has a lot to do with his advocacy for the advancement of human rights. He is conscious of integrating human rights-related issues into his teaching profession. He has helped publish books written by political prisoners, families of victims of enforced disappearances, and displaced indigenous peoples. He has also produced video-documentaries about the plight of political prisoners in the Philippines. In 2022, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NFT-ELCAC) terror-tagged him as "subversive" together with other four Filipino authors.