by Christine Godinez Ortega

Philippine Ambassador MacArthur F. Corsino is this year’s Charter Day Speaker.

Mac Arthur Corsino - MSU-IIT Charter Day Speaker - 2014


Ambassador MacArthur F. Corsino and wife Bernadette

Corsino’s last post as Philippine Ambassador was in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti and the Bahamas. He was also a former Philippine Consul General to Oman, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Washington D.C.

He finished his undergraduate and graduate courses in education at Silliman University. He later taught Political Science and became Head of the Southeast Asian Studies Program at Silliman while working as Editor for the Negros Chronicle in Dumaguete City.

As a Fullbright Hayes scholar, he took his doctorate in Political Science at the Northern Illinois University (NIU) where he received a Graduate Honor Fellowship, and the NIU Maryanov Award as Most Outstanding Graduate in Political Science in 1977; and his Post Graduate Fellowship at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

He became the Executive Director of the Philippine Conference at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and received a Research Fellowship at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. He conducted Professorial lectures in Silliman and on Public Administration at the UP Diliman.

In 1976, he received a Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the International Studies Association; the Silliman University Outstanding Sillimanian Award in 2009; the Dipolog City Centennial Pangadlaw Award in 2011; and, the Distinguished Service Award from the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2012.

As a DFA official, he attended international conferences, meetings and programs as Philippine representative to the US and Canada, Belgium, France, Finland, Turkey, Cyprus, China, Japan, Bangladesh, Sabah, Cambodia, Malaysia, Oman, Muscat, Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and in the Philippines. Throughout his academic and diplomatic career, he has addressed a total of 19 universities and colleges.

Aside from his address during the 46th Charter Day Program on July 12, 2014 at the Gym, he will give a short lecture on nationalism in the Caribbean countries before the Departments of Political Science and History, College of Arts & Social Sciences at the Institute Boardroom on July 11, 2014. – Christine Godinez Ortega for OC-OPI


The Ambassador and his wife visiting Philippine troops as part of the UN Peacekeeping force in Haiti.

Photo credit: Photos from Barry Schrader’s column, DeKalb, Illinois

Topics : charter day