Academic Leadership in Social Education and Cultural Development

Dr. Azanza has been an educator for more than twenty (20) years. He spent most of his professional life as a social education teacher and researcher focusing on social and cultural studies. He started teaching social science and sociology subjects in 1991 at the Department of Sociology in UP Diliman; and human resources development and industrial relations subjects at the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR).

 From there, he went on to become a well-published academic leader and researcher. Not so many social education teachers of his age can accomplish what Dr. Patrick Azanza has done in his field of expertise. At 39 years old, he has written seven (7) books and more than thirty (30) academic papers, articles and researches.

His commitment to social and cultural development studies has brought him to folklore research, a field only very few social scientists would find serious interest in because of the low economic returns despite its being physically tiring, time consuming, financially draining, and most of the time frustrating due to the difficulty in finding source materials and key informants even after spending so much effort in the field, libraries and museum. In fact, the specific field of interest of Dr. Azanza which is oral folklore research is much more challenging as it requires highly specialized research and documentation capabilities.

As the term denotes, oral folklore is not documented and is extremely dependent on the recollection of the key resource persons who orally transmit it across generations. This is the reason why in 1989, during the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference in Paris, France, a resolution was adopted “to safeguard and protect folklore, particularly oral traditions that are extremely fragile and at risk of getting lost”. This resulted in the Hudhud chants of the Ifugaos and the Darangen epic of the Maranaos being declared by the UNESCO as masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity. UNESCO, however, emphasized that there are many more oral folklore that need to be saved and protected.

These were just few of his achievements before he finally establishes Cosmotec contact center and the group of companies as a whole. Cosmotec Group of Companies is one of his best achievements that serve many people now.

Dr. Patrick Azanza also a served as a member of the Board of Directors of the British Alumni Association. Dr. Azanza did research works at the Cordillera Studies Center and wrote for the “Ti Similla” while he was a faculty member at UP Baguio in 1992. He was also involved in 1993 as a  sociologist and field Researcher for a study on the indigenous Dumagat people in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija under the Environmental Research Division, Manila Observatory, Ateneo de Manila University.

 In 1997, he was appointed Research Fellow at the UP Law Center and wrote the Japanese Influences at Work: Perspective from Selected Filipino Workers, in the book  Image and Reality: Philippine-Japan Relations Towards the 21st Century, published by the UP Law Center and funded by the Japan Foundation.