Born in the Philippines, educated in Leeds and London in the UK as well as a fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA in the US.

Today, he wears several hats as:

• Faculty member of the Department of Computer Science, University of the Philippines http://upcompsci.net
• Project Leader, OpenOffice.org File Viewer http://oooview.dev.java.net
• Project Leader, UP Office, a derivative of OpenOffice.org Office suite
• Founding Member, Philippine Linux Users Group http://linux.org.ph
• Founding Member, Java Champions http://java-champions.dev.java.net
• Apple Distinguished Educator, Class of 2006 http://apple.com/education/ade
• Project Lead, Java Education & Development Initiative http://jedi.upcompsci.net
• UP JRDC Contact, Open Document Format Alliance http://www.odfalliance.org
• Moderator, PinoyMac.org http://www.pinoymac.org

You may find him talking about Open Source, Open Standards and the Mac at http://rom.feria.name/blog.