Former University of the Philippines (UP) president Dr. Jose "Pepe" Veloso Abueva passed away at his home in Antipolo on Wednesday, Aug. 18. He was 93 years old.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Rossana in a Facebook post.

He served as the 16th president of UP from 1987 to 1993 and chancellor of UP Diliman from 1990 to 1991.

Abueva was also a signatory to the now abrogated UP-Department of National Defense Accord.

The accord, signed by Abueva and then Secretary of Defense Fidel V. Ramos on June 30, 1989, established certain norms and protocols governing relations between the University and military and police forces, such as prior notification by the Armed Forces of the Philippines or the Philippine National Police to the UP administration before conducting any military or police operations in any of the UP campuses of the eight UP constituent universities.

Abueva's specializations include democracy and governance, political science, politics and administration, and decentralization and federalism, according to the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG).

He was the secretary of the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971 and the chairman of the Legislative-Executive Military Bases Council from 1989 to 1990.

He was also the chairperson of the Consultative Constitutional Commission during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2005.

Abueva was a visiting professor at Yale University and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and guest lecturer at the University of Michigan, the University of Hawaii, the University of Oregon, Cornell University, Duke University, Tufts University, Sophia University in Tokyo, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Waseda University, the City University of New York, Colombia University, University of California, Berkeley and Northern Illinois University among others. He also taught at the United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan, and worked for the Ford Foundation.

He was also the Assistant Dean of the Institute of Public Administration, the predecessor of what is now NCPAG.

During his UP presidency, he established the Leadership, Citizenship, and Democracy Program in 1992 which would eventually become the Center for Leadership, Citizenship, and Democracy.

Abueva also founded Kalayaan College in 2000.