SR. MARIA ANICIA BATION CO, RVM, Ph.D.

      Sister Maria Anicia Co belongs to the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, an apostolic institute of pontifical right that traces its roots to the Beaterio founded in 1684 by Mother Ignacia del Espiritu Santo in the Philippines.

      Sister Anicia studied elementary and high school at St. Mary’s Academy (now St. Mary’s College) in Baliuag, Bulacan, one of the RVM schools in the country. She was class valedictorian at both levels in high school she also received the Gold Eagle Award as well as the Gerry Roxas Leadership Award.

      For her tertiary education, Sister Anicia went to the University of Santo Tomas for her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy degree and graduated summa cum laude in 1975. She topped her graduate classes at Maryhill   School of Theology and her Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.Th.L.) classes at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven in Leuven, Belgium. She holds Ph.D in Religious Studies and Doctor of Sacred Theology (S.Th.D.)  degrees also from Leuven, where she specialized in Scriptures, particularly the New Testament.

      She served two terms as an elected member of the RVM General Council (2001-2011) and assigned concurrently as Chair of the RVM Education Ministry, President of the RVM Educational Association of the Philippines and President of St. Mary’s College, Quezon City. To be better equipped for these responsibilities, she enrolled in the Executive Program of the De La Salle University, Manila. She completed the academic requirements for PhD in Educational Leadership and Management, short of a dissertation. She was elected as Director-at-large of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) in 2009 and was a member of the Office of Theological Concerns of the Federation of Asian Bishop Conferences (FABC) for ten years (2002-2012).

      She has been a resource person and speaker at international, Asian-wide and national conferences, colloquia, symposia and seminars on theology, women in the Bible, Biblical literature and research, religious education, consecrated life, spiritual exercises, evangelization and related topics. She taught in different schools of theology, seminaries and houses of formation.

      She is currently the Second General Consultor of the RVM Congregation, in charge of Vocation and Formation, the Directress of the Mother Ignacia Center for Spirituality and RVM Archives and Research Coordinator. She is a member of the Board of the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines (CBAP) and member of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (CBAA), Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), and Society of American Archivists (SAA).

       She continues to teach at the Loyola School of Theology (LST), the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay (DWST), the Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA) and the Maryhill School of Theology (MST).