Emeritus Professor Paul Hutchcroft named Adopted Son of Cebu City

Emeritus Professor Paul Hutchcroft, from the Department of Political and Social Change at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, has been named an Adopted Son of Cebu City. Established in 1565 as the first capital of the Spanish colonial realm, Cebu City is now the hub of the second-largest metropolitan area in the Philippines.

In a June resolution of the Cebu City Council, acting upon a previous resolution of the city’s Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission, Hutchcroft is recognised for his “distinguished scholarship, his sustained engagement with Cebu’s academic and civic communities and his meaningful contribution to the understanding of Cebu City’s history, development, and public life”. Two other scholars, archaeologists respectively from Japan and New Zealand, were similarly recognised.

The honour was formally conferred upon Hutchcroft at a ceremony held at the Cebu City Museum on 9 October. A representative of Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival presented the recognition, saying the three scholars’ work “continues to enrich our understanding of our city and its people”. The city expressed its hope that their dedication to research, education and public service will inspire future generations of Cebuanos.

Professor Hutchcroft is a leading scholar of Philippine politics and political economy, concentrating primarily on national-level concerns while also the co-author of recent analyses of Cebu’s politics and political economy.  When on Fulbright fellowships in 1995-96 and 2003, he was based at the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos. During his 2023 ANU sabbatical, Hutchcroft was visiting professor at the University of the Philippines Cebu (where he worked with Professor Weena Gera on an analysis of on-going governance challenges in metro Cebu). Now in retirement, he and his wife Edna Labra Hutchcroft are dividing their time between Canberra and Cebu.

Hutchcroft was the founding Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, then the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies, from 2009 to 2013.