The partnership with the IYAS La Salle National Writers’ Workshop under De La Salle University’s Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center (BSCWC) was first formalized in 2015, when Renato Redentor Constantino was still the head of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC). Constantino has since provided annual provocation lectures to IYAS fellows—eight in all, uninterrupted except for the pandemic disruptions of 2020.
In 2024, a year after Constantino stepped down as executive director of ICSC and as ICSC’s new leadership contemplated the renewal of support for IYAS, the foundation stepped in to pledge five years of support to IYAS.
In a Memorandum of Agreement between the president of De La Salle University and the managing director of the Constantino Foundation, the groups agreed to formally work together. DLSU’s BSCWC and the University of St. La Sallle in Bacolod City will lead the organization of of the writer’s workshops, enabling in particular the annual Public Provocation Lecture on Issues of the Environment in the Anthropocene” while the Constantino Foundation prepares for and delivers the provocation lectures.
The provocation-lecture in 2024 was delivered by Renato Redentor Constantino together with his son, the biologist Rio Renato Constantino, who read The Year of the Periwinkle which won the grand prize in the English essay category of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in 2023.
Constantino delivered in 2016 the first provocation in IYAS. He has since provided annual provocative lectures, except for 2020, due ot the pandemic lockdowns. This year marks the 24th IYAS, and his ninth provocation.
