The USC Office of Population Studies (OPS) Foundation, Inc. hosted different external partners to showcase its work and establish possible partnerships. 

Meeting with CPD Undersecretary Dr. Lisa Bersales

Commission on Population and Development (CPD) Executive Director Undersecretary Lisa Grace S. Bersales, Ph.D., visited the OPS on April 30, 2025, at the W. Flieger Building, USC Talamban Campus.  

Prior to her tenure as CPD head, Usec. Bersales was the National Statistician and Civil Registrar General.  She was also a former Dean and Statistics professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Statistics and Vice-President for Planning and Finance of the UP System.  

Usec. Bersales is highly renowned globally in the fields of statistics and population and development.  Among her many significant contributions was being co-chair of the United Nations (UN) Statistical Commission’s Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDGs indicators from 2015 to 2017, which developed the global indicator framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Usec. Bersales was joined by CPD staff from the Central and Region VII offices, led by Assistant Region VII Director Darlynn S. Remolino. Meanwhile, OPS researchers headed by Director Francisco Largo, Deputy Director Sonny Bechyada, Research Fellow Dr. Nanette Mayol, and Consultant-Investigator Dr. Judith Borja also met with the CPD team to discuss current issues in population and development and how OPS research could help address these.  

The parties also discussed the role of OPS in capability building for CPD staff on population and development research, and upcoming activities for World Population Day 2025. These initiatives extend the long-standing collaboration between OPS and CPD. 

For this, OPS was given the 2024 Rafael M. Salas Kaunlarang Pantao (RMSKP) Award for its contributions to research and advancement of discourse on population and development issues at the CPD Region VII RMSKP Awards Night on  December 3, 2024. The award is named after the first Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who was a noted Filipino proponent of population and development.

UNC Global Social Development Innovations Center (GSDI)

Aside from the April 30 visit, the OPS also hosted a meeting with Dr. Gina Chowa, Associate Dean of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Social Work and Director of the UNC Global Social Development Innovations Center (GSDI) and Dr. Rainier Masa, GSDI Research Director on March 18, 2025. 

During the meeting, Dr. Chowa and Dr. Masa presented the academic programs at the UNC School of Social Work and the research/funding opportunities at the GSDI that OPS and USC faculty can avail of.  The productive meeting ended with a resolution to pursue the crafting of a memorandum of understanding between USC and UNC (through the UNC School of Social Work) to institutionalize an academic and research partnership between the two universities.  

Also joining this meeting were USC Research, Development, Extension, and Publications Office (RDEPO) Director Dr. Patrick John Lim and Deputy Director Dr. Rommel Bacabac, Dr. Gerard Lee See (Dean, School of Health Care Professions), Dr. Florencio Arce Jr. (Chair, Department of Pharmacy), Janine Requina, R.N., M.A.N. (Chair, Department of Nursing), Dr. Alaine Liggayu (Chair, Department of Political Science), and Dr. Leny Ocasiones (Chair, Department of Anthropology, Sociology and History). The OPS attendees included Francisco Largo (Director), Sonny Bechayda (Deputy Director), Dr. Nanette Mayol (Research Fellow), Dr. Judith Borja (Consultant-Investigator), Delia Carba (Consultant-Investigator), and Nikola Belarmino (Researcher).