President, CoNGO – The Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations
Rev. Liberato C. Bautista is the President of CoNGO—The Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations.
Bautista concurrently serves as the main representative of the United Methodist Church—General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), which is the international public policy and social justice agency of The United Methodist Church. Bautista served as president of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations. Bautista chaired the Council of Organizations in New York of the United Nations Association of the USA and elected in 2018 to serve in its Executive Committee.
Bautista teaches, writes and lectures in a variety of fields, including international affairs; NGO and civil society dynamics; social and political ethics and social transformation. He has taught politics and civil society at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea and dynamics of society and community organizing at Saint Andrews Theological Seminary in the Philippines. He is currently teaching on Christian social ethics at John Wesley College in Tuguegarao City. He was awarded the Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa, by Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines in 2016.
Among awards he has received is the 1996 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award given by Drew University; one of eleven around the world awarded a plaque of thanks five in Seoul, South Korea in 2017 by the Korea Democracy Foundation. Bautista is also the recipient of an award of honour in 2017 from the International Religious Liberty Association. In 2000, his alma mater, the University of the Philippines Manila, recognized him as “Most Outstanding Alumnus in the Social Sciences.”.
Bautista studied political science, history, and international studies at the University of the Philippines. His doctoral studies at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey focused on religion and social and political ethics.