First Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Visayas | Founding Member, Asian Fisheries Society | Councilor, AFS First Council (1984–1986) November 1, 1920 – August 26, 2026
On behalf of the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS), it is with profound sorrow that I announce the passing of Prof. Dionisia A. Rola, PhD, on August 26, 2026, at the age of 105.
Prof. Rola was one of the founding members of the Asian Fisheries Society in 1984, and the only woman among the seventeen members of AFS's inaugural Council (1984–1986). Her presence at that first meeting — held on 2 May 1984 at Los Baños, Philippines — helped lay the moral and intellectual foundations of a Society that today unites fisheries professionals across the Asia-Pacific region.
A Pioneer in Philippine Higher Education
Prof. Rola's career was defined by an unbroken sequence of firsts.
She earned her Bachelor of Science in Education, magna cum laude, from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1947 — the same year she joined the newly established UP College Iloilo (UPCI) as an instructor. She went on to complete a master's degree with honors at the University of Melbourne (1952) and a doctorate at the University of Chicago (1960), returning each time to the classrooms and communities of the Visayas.
In 1967, she became the first woman to serve as Dean of UP College Baguio, a post she held until 1970. Returning to Iloilo as Dean of UP College Iloilo in the 1970s, she led the long campaign for an autonomous University of the Philippines in the Visayas — securing a World Bank loan, coordinating with national and local partners, and acquiring the land in Miagao, Iloilo that would become UPV's main campus.
Executive Order No. 628 formally established the University of the Philippines Visayas in 1980, with Prof. Rola appointed as its founding Chancellor — and, in the same moment, the first woman to serve as Chancellor anywhere in the UP System.
She also championed the establishment of the Visayan Studies Program in 1975 (later the Center for West Visayan Studies) and laid the cultural groundwork for what is today the UP Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage (UPV MACH).
A Voice for Asia-Pacific Fisheries
It was in this role — as the founding Chancellor of UP Visayas — that Prof. Rola joined the group of fisheries professionals who founded AFS in May 1984 at Los Baños. She was the only woman in that historic gathering, standing alongside colleagues from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, WorldFish, Sri Lanka, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines. The 1984 founding group selected the seventeen members of AFS's first Council; Prof. Rola was one of them — and the only woman among the seventeen.
In the years that followed, even as she continued to lead UPV, Prof. Rola lent her voice to AFS's mission of regional cooperation in fisheries science, research, and development. Her contributions to the early Council helped shape a Society that has, for more than four decades, served as a bridge between the region's fisheries communities.
In February 2020, on the occasion of AFS's recognition of its founding members, the Society presented Prof. Rola with a Plaque of Appreciation — a quiet moment of gratitude between an institution and one of the women who helped give it life.
A Life Remembered
Prof. Rola is remembered as a visionary leader, a meticulous scholar, and a public servant of uncommon resolve. Across more than a century of change, she opened doors that had never been opened before — for women in Philippine higher education, for the University of the Philippines Visayas, and for the Asia-Pacific fisheries community. Her legacy endures not only in the institutions she built, but in the generations of students, scientists, and citizens who continue to walk through the doors she opened.
On behalf of the Asian Fisheries Society, I extend my deepest condolences to the Rola family, to the University of the Philippines Visayas community, and to all whose lives were touched by Prof. Dionisia A. Rola.
May her soul rest in peace. May her legacy continue to inspire.
Prof. Liping Liu
President, Asian Fisheries Society
Shanghai Ocean University
References / Further Reading
University of the Philippines Visayas official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/U.P.Visayas.Official
Daily Guardian obituary: https://www.dailyguardian.com.ph/blog/up-visayas-pioneer-chancellor-dies-at-105
