 It is an honor and privilege to be part of this project called Thought Leadership at the University of the Philippines, a multimedia oral history. Its objective, as the program concept says, is to capture, preserve and share as detailed the history of the university's service to the public from the individual experiences of distinguished men and women for the benefit of the current and future generation of UP constituents. For the benefit of the public, the University of the Philippines, as described in Republic 9500, is, quote, the National University, a public and secular institution of higher learning and a community of scholars dedicated to the search for the truth and knowledge as well as the development of future leaders, unquote. I feel humbled to have a one-on-one interview with a foremost UP alumna whose professional career has spent more than 60 years since she graduated from the portals of her and our alma mater in the early 50s. The capstone of her career was her being declared national scientist for her outstanding contributions in the field of demography, highest honor which the Philippine government can bestow for one's outstanding contributions to science and technology. I was privileged to witness her conferment held in Malacanyang during the term of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to this day at this age 91. I worked with her in population and development, including family planning and advocacy through the commission on population and other relevant NGOs with similar objectives in fact. She is one of the eminent persons of the forum for family planning and development and in jail, which I am the president. This famous lady, an icon and a legend, is no other than MS Mercedes B Concepcion PhD. Let me start by informing us of her family, mom, your background and if you were to enumerate your parents as well as siblings and you may want to state whether all or some of them are also alumni of the University of the Philippines. I am a product of all UP graduates. My father was from the College of Medicine. My older sister was a graduate of chemistry. My second sister is a dentist and a graduate of the College of Dentistry and my brothers all started in Ateneo but then proceeded to UP one to do business administration and the other one College of Law. Mom, my congratulations to you because you are all products of our University of the Philippines and I know that I'm sure the University of the Philippines Philippines Association must have bestowed our new awards because of all of your families have come from UP. Well, actually I think the culture I grew up in was one that was in academe. My father was a very strict professor and was feared by his students in the College of Medicine. In fact my older sister wanted to become a doctor but then she wanted to duck the class and my father who was looking at her said well you might duck the class but you will also be one of those who I will enter in the cemetery because she were trying to be very hard so she went to chemistry instead. When my turn came at the University I wanted to do something in journalism but my father said journalism you don't need to study that all you have to do is work as a journalist and work in newspapers so he made me take up a general course and where I excelled that was he decided would be where I would do my undergraduate and it turned out that I did chemistry and got a one and he said that's it you will go into chemistry so I finished chemistry but never practiced it because the following year I went into biostatistics in the University of Sydney and after that I had training in demography in the solo department of the University of Chicago. Thank you very much ma'am if I may let me just categorize your achievements as a UP alumna one is in government and the other one is the international community such as the United Nations. Actually I was not a scholar my first year I was since I graduated with honors I was an entrant scholar but I did not keep up my grades and so I paid tuition and matriculation fees throughout my four years in the University. You had your PhD in the University of Chicago and when you came back you became a professor of demography the first lady demographer in the Philippines. Well actually even before I did my degree in demography at the University of Chicago I was already working in the UP in the statistical center which was then a United Nations training center in statistics it later was absorbed in the university and became what is now the UP statistical institute of statistics but it went through UP statistical center I was given a fellowship by the population council of New York to take up advanced courses in demography but when I reached Chicago the chairman of the department of sociology said I know the culture of UP there is no point in you just taking advanced courses because you will be nothing when you get back there all they look at are degrees so you will better take up a PhD and so I enrolled in the graduate program of demography at the University in Chicago and did my academic courses and in 1963 I was recalled by then acting president and Rike Pirata to come back and do my dissertation here because the UN demographic advisor was returning to Australia and somebody had to take her place so that was what happened I did my PhD in absentia and graduated in 1963 but did not along with Dr. Felipe Hocano we both earned our PhDs in absentia in 1963 Ma'am how did UPPI become I mean the establishment of UPPI actually in 1958 the Ford Foundation organized a group of three people to look around Southeast Asia with the goal of establishing population research and training centers in some of the countries in this region so they went to Japan they went to Thailand they came to the Philippines they went to Indonesia and the result was that Japan already had a ministry of health and a population program so they did not need to organize one there on the strengthening of the program so in Thailand the Demographic Institute was set up the UP population institute was established here and in Indonesia the same was established in Jakarta so these three are now the leading institutes in the Southeast Asia are set up by the Ford Foundation it means that as a pioneer in demography you were able to instill the discipline of demography in the University of the Philippines I think it's now part and parcel of the curriculum and the decalice of arts and sciences I was very fortunate because Dr. Virata was very interested in population studies so he was very receptive to the idea of establishing a population institute in the University and since I was the first who had that degree from a foreign University I was it so then followed Elvira Mendoza, Mrs. Pasqual who had a master's degree from Chicago also in demography so the two of us constituted the faculty of the new population institute up to now the UP population institute is still within our University and do you have about trained and produced students who have graduated from either PhD or MA degrees actually the institute does not offer PhDs only a master's program one in demography and another in population studies the PhDs are all trained abroad but I was as I said fortunate that those who followed after me and became the directors of the population institute have all been trained abroad now program the teaching program of demography is now incorporated in the CSSP or the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy while the research on population and population studies is embedded in the population institute so there are two one academic and the other research I see I'm very sure that the the your research and population studies must have been so valuable that there are already policies or laws that have been enacted by the by the Congress of the Philippines as I said I was fortunate that my dissertation dealt with fertility which then occupied the um what you call this the the government who was out concerned with the high rate of population growth of the Philippines and it was also pointed out by the United Nations that we were one of the countries with high rates of population growth so that started the the research program which up to now is still ongoing and in fact later this month the UPPI will have a data dissemination forum on the results of the first national migration survey that's great if I may state that I know the the faculty members have graduated from abroad Dr. Corazon Rimundo who became the UP director later on and now was a passing city councilor also became an academic vice president delayed Dr. Lita Domingo delayed Aurora Perez of course or delayed Jessica Bigot know these are all your all your your product no and who else I think well Grace Cruz and the others yes right so actually they are all over and they have contributed a lot to research in population studies in fact the commission on population have engaged them in in research as well as they become part they become consultants to the commission and other universities mom you see there are two universities one in the south and one in Mindanao father Fligar of San Carlos University and father Francis Madigan it seems to see if we have followed your steps in in creating their own populations studies or population institute actually father Friegel and SVT a German was identified by Dr. Hauser the chairman of the department of sociology at Chicago to take up demography so he followed my footsteps and then set up the office of population studies at in Cebu the University of San Carlos father Madigan a Jesuit who was doing research on Mindanao culture was also involved in sociological studies and one of these was in terms of population growth so his research institute of Mindanao culture became the second institution that was allied with us in undertaking research so whenever we had a national study the two the office of population studies at the University of San Carlos and the research in Mindanao culture Institute at Xavier were always involved so they did the Visayas for the University of San Carlos and Mindanao for the Xavier University I do remember very well mom because these three universities were involved in the commission on populations research studies and of course you were the lead then in ensuring that somehow this the population research would be able to be disseminated for the consumption of the of the public now may I go back to the to the University of the Philippines as our as our alma mater how how do you describe the the connection between UP PI and the international community meaning you know they recognize the internationally the the contribution of UP PI globally in a in a sense actually it was Rafael Salas who became the director of the UN population fund who was responsible in naming the population institute as the organization that will undertake studies in population when he came back from his first for I think he went to the first meeting of his first meeting of the UN General Assembly and there he realized that the Philippines was missing the boat in terms of funds that went to population because there was nothing ongoing here so he came back and came to the population institute and told us to set up a study committee to to be able to recommend to then president Marcos a population program actually it was a family planning program and so we set up a multi disciplinary commission which involved the church the academe and all the different um government departments who were involved in population to study the problem and the result to us that in 1951 and at 51 61 we recommended that the president Marcos espouse a program on population studies and and he did so that was the start and from then on uh that still ongoing now that the population institute is the uh institution that takes care of studying the population in all its facets that's that's correct no because I still have to see the commission and population engaging other universities in population research studies but let can you say that um it was the the tenure of uh the late Rafael Lim Salas assembly as a executive secretary of then president Marcos yes creating was one of the recommendations that emanated from the study uh that we set up a population program with uh involving many of the um government departments to take up all those aspects of population under their organization which had to do with demography and so uh we had the beginnings of what is now the population commission or you did you did help uh draft the first executive order is that correct man yes actually it was uh mr Salas who asked us to draft the terms of reference of the popcorn so that we could recommend that to uh Ferdinand Marcos when he set up the program to this day the commission and population uh also a lot debt of gratitude to you and that to this day they come and enlist your counsel and advice uh of course we are deeply grateful for that and I hope that you will continue uh doing this kind of mentoring and uh providing the council providing council to the commission actually uh we were at also I think very fortunate that um in the recommendation the institute was the only uh non-government uh uh in organization involved in the popcorn uh but uh who all all its um studies were accepted and acted upon by the government this is all the university of the philippines right mom uh now let's uh let's go to the second category of your achievements um in the global community meaning the united nations you see uh the name of mercedes conception is a byword in the corridors of the united nations particularly the un population division and the un population plan please describe you know what you uh what you have done and why all this accolades for you um it was uh president salvador lopez u p president salvador lopez who was responsible for recommending that the population institute director be the philippine representative to the un population commission and so our introduction to the international realm started from that and that was what 1964 so from then on uh we played a role uh not only in attending the sessions of the population commission but in working out the program of research that the un population commission uh was undertaking on behalf of the united nations so we had an in right there and i think that uh my um presence in the un population commission of which started in 1967 uh and continued for many years uh was responsible for the work program of the united nations in population uh being i think a woman a demography from a uh uh underdeveloped country and a catholic gave me many uh perks and and uh i was always considered whenever there was something to do with population because first of all a female a catholic and so forth and that also led to my appointment at the vatican's uh commission on natality which started the population problem yes um in fact uh you are one of the two asians uh who were appointed as members of the yes uh the two two asians and two women of from underdeveloped countries who were appointed members of this commission one from india and the other from the philippines so it really means you have that distinction because uh all the rest of the commission members either came from from europe from latin america and from from the united united states um maybe you may wish to tell to tell us the resource of the study which of the birth control commission in vatican actually um the study the papal commission recommended the use of contraception but the influence of some of the diehard members including a jesuit an american jesuit who influence the the contrary recommendation so our recommendation which was the majority was uh ignored by all the six um six and um and he only looked at the study the research has to be undertaken so but having said that uh at least the uh the uh the study showed to the international community that uh concept contraception can be promoted for as long as it's not about the fashion for as long as uh it's the choice of the couples uh in terms of family planning actually um what was accepted then was rhythm the practice of rhythm as a in terms of contraception but uh the majority opinion which uh was in the report was glossed over because of this influence of the five uh strong members who were conventional and uh who wanted not to rock the boat mom uh i have one last question if you don't mind uh what words of wisdom should you impart on our millenials uh who are our president emerging and succession uh succeeding generations i think that um what i would like to emphasize here is that if our belief is that we need to do something uh about the population program and uh growth of the philippines that we should not be uh afraid of acting on that and i think that um i have on my side uh the national economic and development authority uh whose uh director general is uh a uh one well known in terms of this espousal of population and its uh development you know there's no doubt that social economic planning secretary uh Ernesto Perna is the number one uh exponent and advocate of population and family planning and uh because of his example the commission and population has become more aggressive and really wanted to ensure that we have a quality of life for the uh future generations and now i think that the pubcom is um assuming a major role in fact uh its director is now an undersecretary uh the first time that uh the director has been elevated to to such a rank uh i hope that the president uh undersecretary dr gp peris will be able to have this full support of all the members of the commission i i i believe so mom uh because i'm part and parcel of the commission on population and i can see the commitment of undersecretary peris with the guidance of the chair secretary peria uh what do you think is your legacy in the field of demography am i legacy yes well i think that when i think of the students and the graduates of the u p population institute uh which is now in its what they call it third generation i i feel very proud because i think that in spite of the limited number they are doing what should be done up to now thank you mom for sharing these thoughts that would inspire all of us particularly our present and future university of the philippines students these are all most worthy of emulation congratulations thank you