It is with deep sorrow that we inform you of the death today, 16 November 2020, of our beloved colleague, Prof. Aurora Roxas Lim. She served as PACS President from 2001 to 2006 and a member of the Board of Directors from 2006 to 2018. From 2018 to the day of her passing, she was served as a member of the PACS Advisory Board. A life so beautifully lived deserves to be beautifully remembered. She will be sorely missed. Details of her wake will be announced soon.

Remembering Roxy, Aurora Roxas Lim

by Teresita Ang See

We lost another pillar in the academic community.  Prof. Aurora (Roxy) Roxas Lim passed on Nov. 16, one week short of her 85th birthday. We grieve for her and for our irreparable loss. But we let her go in peace knowing that her life was meaningful and well lived.

I first knew Ben Lim before I knew Roxy. Ben was my professor when I took up graduate studies at the UP Asian Center in 1972 to 73. When my late husband, Chinben, and I came back to the Philippines in 1978, Chinben first taught at the De La Salle University. After a year, he applied and was accepted at the U.P. Asian Center. It was Roxy who defended the rank of Associate Professor II to be given him. For this, my family and I would be forever thankful.

We started meeting with Ben and Roxy to discuss social issues and the Chinese-Filipino community.  I knew Ben but got to know Roxy better and would join Chinben in meetings with them just for friendly but heated discussions on many burning issues.  Often the conversations jumped dizzily from one topic to another because of the Lim couple’s wide range of interests and deep insights. Those who knew Roxy would know how her mind would go off tangent to many side issues from the main topic. She always illuminated the discussions with her erudite and incisive mind. Even with her bad eyesight, she was very well read and very well informed. She can discuss any topic under the sun and in conferences and seminars, her presence was always appreciated because of her insightful questions, some of which were kilometric and would have taken another conference to take up. But it showed the many side facets and aspects of the theme or topic of the conferences.

Roxy and I became closer when we founded the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) in 1987. She widened the PACS horizon by encouraging us to touch on other topics than geopolitics and South China Sea disputes. She introduced studies on public health, science and technology, arts and culture and convened many conferences and discussion groups on the topic. She became President of PACS in xxxx and I was her work horse helping her to organize and mobilize our PACS members.

In 2018, I broached the idea that she should compile, edit and put together her articles which I can publish as a volume.  We started doing that but like many good intensions, the volume was sidetracked by many other pressing tasks. I promised her that the volume will be ready by 2020, but that was before the disastrous pandemic struck. It was no excuse but I only hope she understood and knew that her book took a backseat because of our massive Taal Relief followed by Covid 19 Kaisa Kontra Korona project. In October, I was getting ready to pick up again where I left off. I feel sad and inconsolable that the promised book did not materialize before she left us.

She had so much to offer and she had offered herself to teaching, research and writing all her life. Her invaluable contribution to Chinese and Chinese in the Philippines studies cannot be measured and could hardly be surpassed.

Roxy, we will surely miss you. We mourn and grieve for our irreparable loss. But are comforted that you left at this time of anxiety, suffering, pain and uncertainties.  We shall always treasure and remember the legacy of scholarship, tenacity and principles you imprinted on us and on those whose lives you have touched.

IN MEMORIAM – AURORA ROXAS LIM

November 27, 1935 – November 16, 2020

by Nita (Bernardita Reyes) Churchill

I have known Roxy almost my entire lifetime in UP – I met her thru her husband, the late Benito Lim, who was my classmate in Freshman English 1 in the class of then Miss Nieves Benito (later, Epistola). Roxy and Ben were already a two-some then and were campus figures in the then College of Liberal Arts. My “connect” with Roxy and Ben continued into my sophomore year when I took three more English courses as required by the GE curriculum in UP. Roxy was an English major( and so was Ben) – and she was in the company of my Professors in English – Elmer Ordoñez, Nieves Benito (again), and Dr. Leonard Casper (who left before the semester ended to return to Boston, USA, with his then new bride Belinda Ty). S.V. Epistola finished the semester with us.

Roxy, like me, went to Cornell University and we both took graduate studies in the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) where I finished an MA, Major in Southeast Asian History, Minor in Chinese History.

It was when Theresa Chong Cariño founded the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) in 1987 that Roxy and I became closely involved with Chinese Studies. The “China Connection” included seven official visits to China during my term as Chair of the UP Department of History (1984-1987). Roxy and I participated actively in various PACS Conferences and other China-related activities. I was at that time also a lecturer in the Chinese Studies Program at De La Salle University.

Roxy and I were together last year at the RTD Chinese in the Philippines – Workshop on Pre-Colonial and Colonial Philippines – China History Research Project – Confucius Institute, Ateneo de Manila University and Chinese Culture Experience Center, Makati City, November 22-23, 2019. Little did I know I would not be seeing her again.

Roxy had no equal in her knowledge and expertise of China and everything that involved Chinese Studies which she generously shared with all of us. She was the font of knowledge on China and almost anything Chinese – one always came away with new knowledge listening to her presentations.

We will miss you, Roxy, but we will cherish memories of time spent with you – always.

A Tribute to Professor Aurora Roxas-Lim

by Faina C. Abaya-Ulindang, Ph.D ,

 in behalf of our research group-“Probing Maranao-Chinese Relations Before 1898”

A dear professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines-Diliman; and an advocate of Filipino and Chinese understanding, Professor Roxy (as she was fondly called) Lim  had left a legacy of pre-modern Asia scholarship that must be exacting and profound,  to the benefit new batches of scholars in the academe.

She would reach out to where she was needed. It could be a topic that still needed to be investigated and called for more judicious inquiry, or to a place of archeological interest where her presence was needed.  Her erudition about the pre-history of southeast Asia was impeccable and to which most scholars in the field went to her for consultation. She was active in the group APCU (Association of Philippines-China Understanding) during the late 1970’s where she oftentimes brought us (being China studies major) to their activities. She brought us to watch Chinese films and exposed us to the grandeur of Chinese culture of pre-modern times. She was indeed a feisty professor who knew her turf well better than most professors I had at the Asian Center. While I thought of myself as just any ordinary student, she would encourage me to do more research on certain topics of interest in Mindanao, knowing that I am based in Mindanao. It was from her that I learned that a certain prominent datu might have been a former slave, and that I might want to research more about him. Even when I was no longer her student, I learned from colleagues who met her that she was especially interested on how I was doing. She visited me once in my MSU Marawi campus home once and met my family there. She was indeed solicitous of her former students.

Last year in November, our Mindanao delegation attended the Ateneo Confucius Institute Seminar Workshop on Pre-Spanish and Spanish Period History of Filipino-Chinese Relations.  Meeting Professor Lim, who was one of the speakers, was such a blessing. She was also our consultant along with Dr. Bernardita Churchill, for our research proposal on Maranao-Chinese Relations during the Pre-Spanish and Spanish Eras. Her encouragement as well as her lead towards the possible sources for our topic made us feel special to her that I have personally followed up through e-mailing her. She gave us thoughtful advice re the pictures of jarlet and potteries that were part of the collections of  Dr. Juvanni’s contact in Lanao del Norte.

Recently, when news of her passing broke out in social media, we really felt a certain loss because she could no longer be there for us as our consultant. We really thought of her as our valuable senior partner in the project. We are really saddened by this loss.

We commiserate with her family and join them in praying for beloved Professor Aurora Roxas-Lim’s eternal repose.