Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

Remembering Roderick Orlina (1976 – 2023), Scholar of Southeast Asia, Friend of the Asian Center

Details
The UP Asian Center commemorates the passing of Mr. Roderick G. Orlina, an influential scholar of Southeast Asian epigraphy, and generous donor of significant academic works to the UP Asian Center Library.

On 23 May 2022, Mr. Orlina donated 145 books, journals, and other seminal works on Asian Studies published from 1932 through 2015 to the UP Asian Center Library. The materials cover subject areas such as religion; philosophy; psychology; world history; geography, anthropology, recreation; social sciences; fine arts; (mostly Asian and Oceanic) languages and literatures; agriculture; law; military science; bibliography, and information resources. Most of the books are written in English, some are in Arabic, Filipino, Indo-Malaysian, and Vietnamese languages. 

As we commemorate his achievements and contributions to Southeast Asian history and epigraphy, we also express our gratitude for his valuable gifts to the Center. His works and donations are instrumental in the growth of research and academic communities at the university.

ABOUT RODERICK ORLINA

Roderick Garcia Orlina was born in New York on May 22, 1976. He acquired his BA in Linguistics and Japanese Studies in 1999 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His passion for languages led him to pursue his study of Malay (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1999), Turkish (Taksim Dilmer in Istanbul, 2003), Arabic (Center for Arabic Language and Eastern Studies at Sana’a in Yemen, 2003; Arabic Teaching Institute for Non-Arabic Speakers in Syria, 2004), and Chinese languages (Xiamen, 2005; Xi’an, 2006) from 1999 to 2005. Mr. Orlina obtained his Master’s degree in Islamic Studies in 2012 from the University of the Philippines Diliman. He was a Ph.D. candidate in Asian History at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia. His unfinished dissertation was on everyday life in early colonial Manila. 
Mr. Orlina made a significant contribution to Southeast Asian epigraphy. In 2012, he published his findings from the Mahāpratisarā golden amulet from Agusan in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, breaking barriers amid the scant archaeological evidence of Buddhist influence in the Philippines. Mr. Orlina also studied the Islamic tombstones in the Philippines, contributing to Sulu’s historiography and epigraphy. 
In her obituary, Annabel Teh Gallop, lead curator for Southeast Asia of the British Library, looks back at her colleague’s exceptional talent in seeking out and discovering primary sources in Southeast Asian Studies through fieldwork and archival research in repositories less examined by most scholars and then subsequently sharing these discoveries with his colleagues. Read more: In memoriam: Roderick Orlina (1976-2023), scholar of Southeast Asian epigraphy | Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) (wordpress.com)

ORLINA'S PUBLICATIONS

2012. "Epigraphical evidence for the cult of Mahāpratisarā in the Philippines."  Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 35 (1-2): 159-69. 
2015. “A Jawi Sourcebook for the Study of Malay Paleography and Orthography.” Indonesia and the Malay World 43 (125): 13–171. doi:10.1080/13639811.2015.1008253. (Co-authored with Annabel Teh Gallop, Wan Ali Wan Mamat, Ali Akbar, Vladimir Braginsky, Ampuan Hj Brahim bin A.H. Tengah, Ian Caldwell, Henri Chambert-Loir, Helen Cordell, Tatiana A. Denisova, Farouk Yahya, Arndt Graf, Hashim bin Musa, Irina R. Katkova, Willem van der Molen, Ben Murtagh, Mulaika Hijjas, Jan van der Putten, Peter Riddell, Yumi Sugahara, Roger Tol, and E.P. Wieringa)
2016. “New perspectives on late Tang maritime trade?.” The Newsletter 73 (Spring): 50. (Co-authored with Eva Stroeber)
2018. “Revisiting Sulu Relics: Islamic Epigraphy from Jolo, Philippines.”  In Writing for Eternity: A Survey of Epigraphy in Southeast Asia, edited by Daniel Perret. 377-83. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient. 
Reference: Gallop, Annabel Teh. 2024. " In memoriam: Roderick Orlina (1976-2023), scholar of Southeast Asian epigraphy." Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG). Retrieved 1 July 2024. In memoriam: Roderick Orlina (1976-2023), scholar of Southeast Asian epigraphy | Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) (wordpress.com). 
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The Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The UP Asian Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. It also offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. As an area studies institution, the Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website.