PHILIPPINE STUDIES WORKSHOP ADVANCES TRANSNATIONAL DIALOGUE IN LISBON
Lisbon, Portugal, 9–10 December 2025 — University professors, scholars, and diplomats convened in Lisbon for a two-day international workshop under the Philippine Studies Program in Portugal, advancing cultural diplomacy through scholarship, dialogue, and people-to-people exchange. Hosted at the Biblioteca Palácio Galveias and the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, the workshop brought together more than 70 participants from the academe and the Filipino, Portuguese, and Brazilian communities.
In his keynote address, Prof. Armando Marques Guedes of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA) School of Law presented Rizal resented Rizal as a Humboldtian thinker whose mastery of languages, medicine, natural history, and the arts made him politically threatening to colonial authorities, contributing to his execution. He portrayed Rizal as both a national hero and a global intellectual shaped by the imperial world of his time.
Dr. João Paulo Costa of the NOVA Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (FCSH) Centro de Humanidades highlighted Portuguese maritime expansion in Asia during his keynote address on the second day, noting the Philippines’ absence from early maps and its later global significance through Spanish integration in trans-Pacific trade, emphasizing early globalization as a network of negotiated exchanges rather than unilateral European dominance.
Over two days, the workshop featured sessions and panels of book and paper presentations on colonial, social, and cultural histories. The first day’s opening session explored historical figures, archival discoveries, and urban social transitions, while the second examined colonial medicine, economic histories, and environmental activism in Angola, Goa, and Batangas. The final session highlighted Rizal’s intellectual legacy, including his nuanced reform approach, translation challenges of Noli Me Tángere to Portuguese, and a sartorial analysis in the novel.
Panel discussions on the second day addressed African student mobility, Philippine-Portugal trade, Macau, digital diplomacy, Davao’s abaca economy, and French-Filipino scientific ties. Several papers foregrounded women and gender, including travel writing, girls’ education during the Spanish Era, and comparative reproductive rights, emphasizing women’s agency across time and place.
In his closing remarks, Ambassador Paul Raymund P. Cortes challenged scholars to carry knowledge beyond academic circles and into everyday life, stressing that scholarship must speak to ordinary people. He called for the workshop to be held annually and emphasized that academic insights should inform the continuing refinement of Philippine foreign policy.
The Philippine Embassy co-organized the workshop with Dr. Stephanie Marie R. Coo, in partnership with the NOVA FCSH, led by Dean Alexandra Curvelo, and the Ateneo de Manila University, under Dr. Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu, Dean of the School of Social Sciences.
The Philippine Studies Program in Portugal, supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs, remains a key platform for strengthening academic ties, and affirming the DFA’s sustained commitment to cultural diplomacy. END