Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-07: Cole Yokingco on the intersection of geography, law and climate change

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series continues during the midyear. For the seventh presentation of this long-running series, the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) are co-sponsoring the talk of an alumnus who is knee-deep in conservation work.

The talk is Ignoring boundaries: How geography, law, climate change, and biodiversity intersect by John Colin Yokingco from Conservation International Philippines and is happening via Zoom on Tuesday, 16th of June 2026 at 5:30PM. His talk looks at the link between the legal system and climate change. Where things are, how justice is defined, the impacts of climate change, and the diversity of life are important in addressing the challenges of our times, according to Yokingco. 

Geography and law are fields of study that may not be connected at first glance. One deals with how things interact spatially while the other deals with the obligatory norms set by those in power. Climate change and biodiversity on the other hand, although considered as subjects studied under the physical sciences, are usually addressed separately in the legal framework of the Philippines. In spite of their apparent boundaries, geography, law, climate change, and biodiversity intersect in more ways than we think. The impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss have no respect for boundaries set by the law. The international commitments of states mean nothing if local action receives no support. Finally, justice is fundamental to any solution to these issues. Discourse on these issues have progressed over the past 12 years. The overlaps and intersections will be discussed through the experiences of a geography graduate who has navigated the space over the same period through their professional career. From land use planning, defending human rights, and now conserving nature geography remains at the core of the approach. 

John Colin E. Yokingco is a legal and development professional who has worked on issues related to climate change, disaster risk management, and human rights. Cole currently works on policies related to natural climate solutions, biodiversity, and indigenous people’s rights as the Philippines Policy Senior Manager of Conservation International Philippines.

Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This month’s Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by two research clusters at the UP Department of Geography: Human Geography (HUG), and Environment and Development Geographies (EDGE) and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) and SDG #13 (Climate Action) of the United Nations.

To participate in the Zoom lecture, please click this link to register: https://tinyurl.com/53rf59w2

Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-06: Patrick de Castro on the making, un-making and re-making of place

In a recent article by Christophe Claramunt (2025), he echoed what several critical cartographers and historical geographers have said before about power relations that result in a lacunae and concealment of places in historico-cartographical practices: "[T]here are numerous instances where information is intentionally omitted or concealed from maps, driven by motivations ranging from security and privacy concerns to political, social, economic, and cultural interests" (2025, p. 1).

It is in the un-making of places in the past that drives a corrective -- and a remaking of places -- that situates power relations and tells alternative historical accounts. Such is the case of the Iglesia y Hospital in Spanish occupation-era San Gabriel de Manila.

On Tuesday, the 19th of May at 1:30PM via Zoom, the Heo/Geo Lecture Series presents a talk by Associate Professor Patrick Anthony de Castro with a title: The search for the lost narrative and discursive reconstruction of the whereabouts of Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel de Manila. 

Using methodologies from various disciplines and a discursive approach in reconstructing the subject matter at hand, the research hoped to correct some long-standing misconceptions, pointed-out unknown lacunae, and clarified muddled loopholes on the beginnings of Intramuros in general, and particularly the proselytization activities of the Dominican congregation in the Philippines. Known as the church cum hospital established by the Dominicans for non-Christian Chinese immigrants to Manila, it is discovered that Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel was already operational, both as a church and hospital, even before the establishment of Dominican’s mother church and monastery, Monasterio y Iglesia de Sto. Domingo, and that the latter’s location at the Gran Cienaga or great swamp at the northeastern corner of what would become Intramuros was based on the location of their missionary works among the said Chinese group in the Parian and not the other way around as written in many positivistic studies about them before.

Related to this is providing a re-examination of the sources used in academic studies and secondary works placing the beginnings of Dominican missionary works at Baybay, the local town with Chinese Christian inhabitants located at the tip of the southern banks of the Pasig River.

Associate professor Patrick de Castro teaches history at Miriam College. He previously served as chairperson for the Department of International Studies and the Department of Social Sciences in Mirian College. He is a member of the Philippine National Historical Society (PNHS) as well as in Manila Studies Association. He published several modules on Philippine History and the life and works of Jose Rizal. His research includes the history of Malabon before the arrival of the Maryknoll sisters, and his past and present engagements with the lost churches in Intramuros. His academic degrees are in history with forays in geography, anthropology and urban planning. 

To provide a contemporary context to areas in Intramuros used to be occupied by such institutions, it is pinpointed that Iglesia y Hospital de San Gabriel was located at a spot currently occupied by the Letran Gym and part of the northern façade of the College of San Juan de Letran fronting it. This was discovered here through what was established in earlier scholarship as the eastern boundary of Manila from 1577 to 1583. This boundary was established earlier as being only along what became Legazpi street and not beyond where the eastern walls of Intramuros (which were constructed later).

Based on the research, when, how, and where the church and hospital of San Gabriel were transferred to two different sites on the islet of Binondo; the church in 1594 and the hospital in 1598 along its Pasig River banks, and their eventual demise. The presentation will show how the hospital completely disappeared in the 19th century while the church being destroyed during the British Invasion of Manila in the 18th  century but upon whose grounds the current church of Binondo was built almost a century later.

Additionally, the presentation argues that the first name given to the said church and hospital of the Dominicans for the Chinese in the Parian is San Pedro de Martir, considered  as one of the actual founders, aside from UST’s founder Fr. Miguel de Buenavides, Juan Maldonado de San Martir in honor of the same saint he was named after.

Thus, its well-known identifying designation in honor of San Gabriel after whom the northeastern bulwark of Intramuros was named after, Bastion de San Gabriel, that was built towards the end of Spanish rule over the country, as the current source of knowing about parts and parcel of the said subject matters of the research, has nothing to do with them except occupying portions of the site in Intramuros where they used to be located. This paper attempts to prove the historicity of Iglesia y hospital de San Gabriel built by the Dominicans for Chinese residents of the Parian and their geographical whereabouts within the city of Manila and its environs from their inception until their disappearance as Spanish institutions.

This presentation is part of a research conducted a few years ago called 'Search of Two Lost Catholic Churches in Intramuros de Manila towards the ed of the 16th Century' that was funded by the Center for Strategic Research of Miriam College then directed by  Dr. Joey Alagaran. Moreover, de Castro discovered about the muddled and incomplete historicity

of the Iglesia y hospital de San Gabriel out of his studies in the masters program on the urban development of Manila, 1571 – 1593, done a more than a century ago (1998).

Jointly sponsored by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS), the Heo/Geo Lecture Series is a monthly resource talk / lecture given by academic geographers, geography-adjacent scholars, practitioners working in geospatial industries, and partners that engaged in multiple publics, and based locally and abroad. The talk ranges from the sharing of research findings to pedagogical practices and field-based experiences. This current lecture is facilitated by the Human geography (HUG) research cluster at the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the Zoom lecture, click this link to participate: https://tinyurl.com/4zhefnwz

Reference:

Claramunt, C. (2025). The phenomenon of hidden geographical information in cartography. International Journal of Cartography, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/23729333.2025.2595717

POSTPONED: Heo/Geo Lecture Series 2026-06: Alyson Mabie on cities, machines and the 'future of law enforcement'

This talk is postponed due to the speaker's family emergency. We will announce the rescheduled date sometime soon. - Heo/Geo Lecture staff

"Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law."

That is RoboCop's response when asked by Bob Morton what his prime directives are. This was in the 1987 film directed by Paul Verhoeven.

RoboCop helped cement the science fiction genre in the 1980s that delved into, among other things: dystopia, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, technology gone rogue and future glimpses of urban landscapes. 

On 15 May 2026 at 5:30PM Philippine Standard Time (2:30AM Pacific Standard Time), Alyson Mabie will talk about city futurities in the age of technology using the figure of RoboCop as case study. Titled ‘RoboCop Protects Delta City’: Yesterday’s Urban Dystopic Sci-fi Cinema and the Technofascist Capture of Tomorrow, this online talk is mounted by the UP Department of Geography and the Philippine Geographical Society (PGS) through the Heo/Geo Lecture Series.  

While a fair number of people think they know science fiction, the science fiction (SF) genre is one of cognitive estrangement allowing the audience to imagine a plausible yet strange “newness” within the familiar that occurs in the subjunctive tense of “events that have not happened” (Suvin, 1972; Delany 2009). This speculative invitation enables us to imagine radical change and otherwise futures. However, SF has also been a medium of white supremacist and fascist worldbuilding. The 1970s-90s were a golden age for urban dystopic sci-fi action films in the US, often presenting a bleak future where privatization and carceral state control have melded into an urban hellscape maintained by robotic and automatized systems, and inescapable surveillance technologies. While the heroes of these films pop the ideological balloon and expose the corrupt inner logics, many aspects of the films’ technofascist urban futures are present in our lives today. 

This presentation analyzes the cinematic representation of the future city in the film universe of RoboCop as it intersects with present day technocapitalist narratives of products as ‘science fiction made real,’ framing carceral and automated technologies in urban and state governance as ‘the future’ precluding all others. With the tagline, “The Future of Law Enforcement, ” Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 cult classic, RoboCop, is set in a near future ‘Old Detroit’ where the city has privatized its social services, including its police force, under a single conglomerate. As labor strikes loom, corporate VPs race to produce a law enforcement solution that doesn’t eat or sleep. Enter Robocop, a highly militarized, robotic police officer programmed to detect and eliminate crime. Robocop is the key feature of the “urban pacification” program that paves the way for construction of Delta City, the CEO’s sleek, controlled urban utopia built on the ashes of Old Detroit.

Alyson Mabie is a PhD student in the Geography Department at the University of Washington. Her current work approaches issues of science, technology, and society (STS) through a feminist relational lens. She likes to think about the entanglements of fictional worldbuilding, futurity, visual media and narratives of urban futures in digital spaces such as video games, social media comment sections, and metaverses.

The Heo/Geo Lecture Series which is co-sponsored by PGS and the UP Department of Geography continues to challenge conventional notions as to what geography as an intellectual field of inquiry is all about and what range of topics traverses the discipline's multiverse (pun intended). The Heo/Geo Lecture Series was borne out of the need to energize and enrich academic geographers and geography-adjacent scholars' need for exciting intellectual mashups that fuse geographical ideas and provocations with new-ish methodologies and field-based practices. This current Heo/Geo Lecture Series is facilitated by the Media, Literary Geographies, and Geohumanities (MELANGE) research cluster of the UP Department of Geography and is in line with the SDG #4 (Quality Education) of the United Nations.

To participate in the event, click this link to register. You can also click this link: https://bit.ly/3QPv1dj

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References:

Delany, Samuel R. (2009). The jewel-hinged jaw: Notes on the language of science fiction. Wesleyan University Press.

Suvin, Darko (1972). On the poetics of the science fiction genre. College English, 34(3), 372-382.