David Michael San Juan

David Michael M. San Juan is a Filipino Marxist writer, researcher, activist, and professor. He was awarded the title of Mananaysay ng Taon (Essayist of the Year) in 2009 and Makata ng Taon (Poet of the Year) in 2010 by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF or Commission in the Filipino Language).

Career
San Juan is an associate professor in the Filipino/Philippine Studies Department at De La Salle University. He served as the 4th congressional nominee of the ACT Teachers Partylist during the 2016 elections, where the party secured two seats in the Philippine Congress.

San Juan is also one of the founders of Tanggol Wika, a language advocacy group that successfully campaigned against the implementation of a government order that aimed to abolish the Filipino language subject in Philippine colleges and universities.

Awards
As a writer, San Juan won various competitions and was chosen Mananaysay ng Taon (Essayist of the Year) in 2009 and Makata ng Taon (Poet of the Year) in 2010 by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF or Commission on the Filipino Language). He was also a finalist in a 2009 climate change-themed essay writing contest organized by the World Bank

Research
As a researcher, he is a staunch critic of the Philippine government's Labor Export Polic y and K to 12 scheme. He wrote a popular essay on "Noynoying" (Filipino-coined term which means "government inaction" on social ills) which was translated in French. In 2012, he presented a paper on "wang-wang" (literally: "siren" or "alarm", figuratively "call to action" for citizens and government) which was declared the Philippines' "Salita ng Taon" (Word of the Year) in a conference organized by the Filipinas Institute of Translation. In 2014, he co-presented a paper on "endo" (end of contract; Filipino colloquial term for labor contractualization/flexibilization) with John Kelvin R. Briones, which was declared as the Philippines' 2nd Word of the Year then.