FACULTY & RESOURCE PERSONS
(List of Regular Faculty and Resource Persons by alphabetical order)
ATTY. ARNEL PACIANO CASANOVA
Arnel Paciano Casanova is a lawyer, peace-negotiator/mediator, urban planner, a governance advocate and social entrepreneur. He was the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and the Lead Faculty for Social Entrepreneurship Course in Ateneo School of Government. He obtained his degree in law from the University of the Philippines and Master’s degree in Public Administration focusing on leadership and finance from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government as a Mason Fellow and World Bank scholar. He pursues his passion in social entrepreneurship in the Philippines and Asia as one of the founders of AvantChange, a social enterprise established in Harvard. He goes around the Philippines and other countries training and mentoring social entrepreneurs. He is also the organizer of the Harvard Club of the Philippines Social Enterprise Initiative. The CARD-MRI, the biggest microfinance institution in the Philippines and the winner of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, elected him in the Board of Trustees and Chairman of its Governance Committee. He helps the Kaya Natin! Movement, a citizen’s movement in the Philippines advocating ethical and effective leadership as one of its core members. Atty. Casanova was born and raised in Padre Garcia, Batangas. He spent six years as a seminarian of the Oblates of St. Joseph.
HARVEY S. KEH
Harvey S. Keh, is a Social Entrepreneur, Media Practitioner and Teacher. As a Social Entrepreneur, he has helped establish two non-profit organizations focused in public education reform namely, Pathways to Higher Education-Philippines and the Acts of Hope for the Nation (AHON) Foundation. Currently, he serves as the Executive Director of AHON Foundation which helps build public elementary school libraries and has helped more than 50,000 students learn how to read. As a Media Practitioner, he is a regular blogger for Inquirer.net, the Philippines' leading news and public affairs website, a regular contributor at The Manila Bulletin, one of the Philippines' leading newspapers and he also hosts a weekly radio program over Radio Veritas 846, the Catholic radio station in the Philippines. As a Teacher, he continues to serve as Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government while continuing to teach Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University-Loyola Schools.
He also serves as a Board Member in several organizations such as the Synergeia Foundation, Planet Finance-Philippines and the Asia Society - Philippines 21 Young Leaders Program.
DR. ANTONIO GABRIEL M. LA VIÑA
Dr. Tony La Viña is a teacher, thinker, and lawyer. He is a public servant and leader, social entrepreneur and human rights and environmental advocate. He is currently Dean of the Ateneo School of Government, taking this position in 2006 when he returned to the Philippines after an eight year stint in a Washington DC-based World Resources Institute (WRI). From 1996-1998, Dean Tony was the Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) of the Philippines and earlier for nearly 10 years, he worked with the Legal Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan which he co-founded. Dean Tony's expertise includes climate change, biodiversity, biosafety policy, mining, indigenous peoples' rights, consensus building and negotiations, social accountability and pubic ethics. Currently, Dean Tony is a lead negotiator for the Philippines in the ongoing Copenhagen climate change talks and chairs the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation negotiations.
Dean Tony obtained his Masters (LLM) and Doctorate in Law (JSD) from Yale Law School and his first degrees from the University of the Philippines (in law) and the Ateneo de Manila University (in philosophy). He placed third in the 1989 bar exams. Dean Tony currently teaches at the Ateneo School of Government, the University of the Philippines College of Law, the Ateneo School of Law, and the Loyola Schools of the Ateneo de Manila University. In 2008, he was the professorial chair holder of the MetroBank Chair of the Philippine Judicial Academy.
DR. CRISTINA M. LIAMZON
Cristina M. Liamzon has over 30 years of involvement with civil society organizations on issues of agrarian reform and rural development, food security, gender and development, sustainable livelihoods, local economic development and since 1998, on migrant concerns. She works as a development consultant with international civil society organizations (CSOs) and UN agencies, among others on project formulation, evaluation and strategic planning.
Based in Rome, Italy since 1990, she is also currently the president of Associazione Pilipinas OFSPES (Overseas Filipinos Society for the Promotion of Economic Security), a non-profit organization which focuses on the socio-economic and cultural empowerment of overseas Filipinos. The Associazione Pilipinas OFSPES is collaborating with the Ateneo School of Government, the Philippine Embassy to Italy, the POLO/OWWA in running the Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship (LSE) Training Program for Migrant Filipinos in Italy. She is likewise co-director of the Family Ministry of the Sentro Pilipino Catholic Chaplaincy in Rome.
She has a PhD in Social Science from the Pontificia Universita Gregoriana (PUG) in Rome; a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University in Cambridge where she was also a Mason Fellow; a MSc in Human Settlements Planning from the Asian Institute Technology (AIT) in Bangkok; and a BA in Economics from the University of the Philippines.
MARIEL VINCENT A. RAPISURA
Starting a career in microfinance soon after he graduated, Vince has gained considerable experience in microfinance having worked on this field in 15 countries aside from the Philippines. He spearheaded the development and delivery of the Ateneo de Manila University’s Microfinance Diploma Course. The diploma course has attracted participants from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Vince is well known to turn around the performance of ailing microfinance institutions and create market niches for those that are struggling with competition. He specializes in designing capacity building interventions and strategies on how struggling MFIs can achieve microfinance financial performance standards. He has also assisted several organizations access funds both from donors and commercial sources in the local and international markets.
Among his notable achievements include increasing the portfolio of the Foundation for a Sustainable Society, Inc.’s microfinance program sevenfold from PhP16 million to PhP134 million in 18 months and at the same time improving its portfolio at risk from 54% to 0%; bringing the financial performance of the Agricultural and Rural Development for Catanduanes, Inc.’s from four years of consecutive net losses to robust profitability; and increasing the client base of Progressive Bank, Inc. from 14,000 to 21,000 in nine months through financial product innovation.
Vince is a product of the Ateneo de Manila University and the Asian Institute of Management. He has also been trained in the Netherlands and the US on microenterprise development and rural finance. Vince is a faculty member of the Development Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University and teaches social entrepreneurship and microfinance.
EDWIN M. SALONGA
Edwin Salonga is a concurrent lecturer at the University of the Philippines’ (UP) Master of Management Program and the Ateneo de Manila University’s Development Studies Program. Graduating Cum Laude and proceeding to earn his Master’s Degree in Public Administration both from the UP, his expertise lies in organizational development in government and development organizations. He is known among training and mentoring assistance clients for his ability to rally management staff to commit to the attainment of targets. Edwin has also conducted performance appraisals and mentoring assistance for microfinance institutions all over the Philippines.
He is largely responsible in developing training courses for the Ateneo Microfinance Capacity Building Program. He is known among training participants to effectively integrate structured learning experiences and adult learning techniques in his training style. Edwin never fails to be evaluated as an excellent trainer and mentor by his MFI clients both in local and international settings. Edwin led the delivery of the Ateneo de Manila’s Diploma Course in Microfinance to the management staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria in Lagos in 2007. Due to the astounding reception of the participants in the training, the Central Bank of Nigeria has made the Diploma in Microfinance an annual program for its management staff. He has also led the delivery of training courses in key cities in the Philippines in partnership with the Bank of the Philippine Islands and the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation.
EDGARDO T. VALENZUELA
Edgar Valenzuela is an international civil servant working with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), where he has worked for over 23 years with duty stations at the FAO Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand and at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, where he is currently responsible for the advocacy and awareness raising programmes related to World Food Day, TeleFood and the FAO Goodwill Ambassadors Programme of the Communication Division.
He has a Bachelor’s degree from Ateneo de Manila University (major in Philosophy) and where he did graduate studies in Social Psychology. He was awarded a certificate in development management by the Asian Institute of Management and holds a certificate in Leadership and Strategic Management from the Institute of Development Research on a Ford Foundation scholarship. He obtained his international master in business administration degree from the European School of Economics.
He was the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Asian Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) where he served as the chief executive for seven years. He also served for three years as regional training officer with the Asian Cultural Forum in Development based in Bangkok from 1976-1979.
In his free time, Edgar actively works with the Associazione Pilipinas OFSPES of which he is one of the founding members and with the Sentro Pilipino Chaplaincy Rome Commission on Youth and Family.