Aileen San Pablo-Baviera (August 26, 1959 – March 21, 2020) was a Filipino

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

. She was one of the leading

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

experts in her country.Rappler
''U.P. professor, China expert Aileen Baviera dies of coronavirus'', 21 March 2020
retrieved 21 March 2020.Rappler
''Aileen Baviera, 60: Her eyes were on China, her heart stayed with PH'', 21 March 2020
retrieved 21 March 2020.

Career

In October 1979, Baviera received her Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service, ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' at the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; ) is a Higher education in the Philippines#State universities and colleges, state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by List of Philippine laws, Re ...

. As a student of modern Chinese history at the

University of Beijing Peking University (PKU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. It i ...

, she was allowed to do research in China for the first time from 1981 to 1983. She learned the Chinese language, received a diploma from the Beijing Language Institute and traveled to the north and west of the country. In 1987, Baviera received a Master of Arts in Asian studies, specializing in China and East Asia. The doctorate in political science followed in 2003.University of the Philippines
''Aileen Baviera''
retrieved 21 March 2020. Before living in China, she was a leftist, but during her time there she "learned to recognize and shun the shallowness of political propaganda when I saw it, Mao's as much as

Marcos Marcos may refer to: People with the given name ''Marcos'' *Marcos (given name) * Marcos family Sports ;Surnamed * Dayton Marcos, Negro league baseball team from Dayton, Ohio (early twentieth-century) * Dimitris Markos, Greek footballer * Né ...

's". From 1980 to 1986, she worked as a researcher and trainer at the

Foreign Service Institute The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the United States federal government's primary training institution for members of the U.S. foreign service community, preparing American diplomats as well as other professionals to advance U.S. foreign ...

of the State Department. Until 1990, she taught at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of the Philippines and then until 1993 as a research coordinator at the Philippine-China Development Resource Center. From June 1993 to May 1998, Baviera was head of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute and taught parallel from 1996 to 1997 at the Faculty of Political Science of the Ateneo de Manila University. From June 1998 to December 2001, Baviera was executive director of the Philippine-China Development Resource Center and at the same time until June 2005 Associate Professor at the

University of the Philippines Asian Center The University of the Philippines Asian Center (also referred to as UP Asian Center or UP AC) is a degree-granting unit of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and is the only unit of the university with a regional area of specialization. ...

. From September 2003 to October 2009, she was also

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

of the Asian Center. From July 2005, she was full professor and from July 2010 chief editor for Asian Politics & Policy of the Policy Studies Organization in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Most recently, she was president and CEO of the Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation.

Death

On the morning of March 21, 2020, Baviera died of pneumonia caused by the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

at the

San Lazaro Hospital, Manila The San Lazaro Hospital (SLH) is a tertiary health facility in Manila, Philippines. It is a referral facility for communicable diseases and is one of the retained special tertiary hospital of the Department of Health and is funded by subsidy fr ...

. She contracted the disease on March 12, when she returned after participating in a security conference in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France. She was one of two Filipino delegates – the other being Alan T. Ortiz – who were exposed to the disease at the conference and later died from it. She is the widow of Jorge Villegas Baviera, who died in 2018, and had three children.

Publications (selection)

* ''Contemporary Political Attitudes and Behavior of the Chinese in Metro Manila'', 1994. * ''Regional Security in East Asia: Challenges to Cooperation and Community Building'', 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baviera, Aileen 1959 births 2020 deaths Filipino political scientists Filipino sinologists Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines University of the Philippines alumni Academic staff of the University of the Philippines Women political scientists Women orientalists