400 years of history and rivalry

By Felipe Salvosa II

SANTO TOMAS is 400 years old.

Paeans and plaudits will surely be bestowed upon the “Pontifical” and the “Royal” university run by the Order of St. Dominic de Guzman, extolling its glorious history, boasting of its presidents, magistrates, clerics, and saints.

But the claim to antiquity aside, how did it manage to last this long, after two wars, three colonizers, and natural calamities?

The University of Santo Tomas was not, strictly speaking, the first university. The honor belongs to Universidad de San Ignacio, the college put up by the Jesuits on 1590. In Cebu, the order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola opened the Colegio de San Ildefonso five years later. But the politics of the time led to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish dominion in 1768, allowing UST to claim today the distinction of “oldest existing university,” not only in the Philippines but in Asia.




Its history, however, does not come in a nice, neat package, like the history of many institutions. Today, UST Day is celebrated on Jan. 28, the feast of its patron, St. Thomas Aquinas, the “angelic doctor” whose writings now form the Church’s official philosophy. The date of foundation is actually April 28, 1611, when three friars of the Order of Preachers signed the Act of Foundation in the presence of the King’s notary.

The act was in execution of the last will and testament of Msgr. Miguel de Benavides, O.P., the Dominican missionary who became the third archbishop of Manila. In 1605, he left P1,600 and his personal library to help put up a seminary to be named after the Lady of the Rosary. A few thousand pesos more allowed the Dominicans to purchase a property near their shrine in Intramuros, the walled city that was the home of UST for three centuries.

At a time when Church and State were one, both the colegios of Santo Tomas and San Ignacio enjoyed royal patronage, although there was no recourse to Spain’s treasury. After much lobbying by King Philip IV, Santo Tomas was given university status by Pope Innocent X in 1645 for degrees in theology and philosophy.

Rivalries were fierce and the orders tried to upstage one another. Santo Tomas began to question the degrees granted by San Ignacio. The king wanted the former to be the university of Manila, equal in footing to those of Lima and Mexico. The courts eventually ruled for the Jesuits.

Apparently in retaliation, the Jesuit procurator Miguel Solana wrote Philip IV in 1653 not to allow Santo Tomas to grant university degrees in law and other courses, claiming there were no qualified teachers, and it was absurd to teach medicine beside the Sto. Domingo Church. The permit did not come until 1734, when Pope Clement XII allowed UST to grant degrees in law and other courses to be established in the future.

In 1680, the bishop of Nueva Segovia (now Vigan) complained to King Charles II that UST was styling itself as as a royal college, placing the king’s coat of arms over the gates. The title “Royal” was not given to UST until 1785.

In contrast, nobody seemed to mind that UST had been using the title “Pontifical” on its official documents without the Vatican’s bidding.  The concession did not come until 1902, from Pope Leo XIII.

The Dominicans finally got a monopoly with the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768, and by 1865, there was no more question as to the prominence of Santo Tomas. Under Queen Isabel II, it became the colony’s education department, supervising all schools in the country. When the Jesuits came back, the students of their Ateneo had to get their diplomas from the Rector of UST.

Five years later, crisis struck. Liberals took over Spain, deposed the monarchy and broke church rule. The colonial minister, Segismundo Moret, abolished UST. For seven years, the school operated as the secular “University of the Philippines”!

Fifteen years after the controversial Moret decree, the Dominican friar Evaristo Fernandez Arias claimed, in his lecture at the opening of the school year, that “The corporations of Manila, the bishops, and the clergy, with the majority of the householders, protested against the measure.” Another chronicler, Tomas del Rosario, however wrote: “In many provinces and in the city of Manila, this never-to-be-forgotten resolution of the Spanish government was received with great joy.”

The secularization drive was short-lived. By 1871, the Dominicans were again fully entrenched, putting up the first school of medicine and pharmacy in the islands. Just over a decade earlier the British governor of Hong Kong commented that there was no focus on the sciences and modern languages, and educational reforms in Europe and the Americas have not found their way here.

The Dominicans had a different view. “From this date (1880) the university of Manila has had a complete course of superior and secondary instruction, better than some universities of the Peninsula,” wrote Arias. The professor proclaimed UST to be the islands’ premiere educational institution, “on account of its antiquity, its history, and its importance.”

Photo from vivasantotomas.tumblr.com

Operations were interrupted by the Philippine revolt against Spain (and later by the Japanese occupation, when UST was turned into a POW camp), but the real upheaval came with the Americans. Church and state were no longer joined, and religious institutions, UST included, had to submit to the new colonial masters.

UST, older than most institutions of the country, had to incorporate under the 1906 corporation code, or else be shut down. The Intramuros campus was cramped, and the Americans were imposing stricter standards. In a bitter legal battle that reached the Supreme Court and Rome, UST lost the assets of the old Jesuit college, which it had lobbied for to support the medical school. In 1908, the University of the Philippines was opened, providing the secular alternative to the rabidly religious Santo Tomas.

This time, the competitive spirit drove UST to finally modernize. In 1911, as UST marked its 300th year under American rule, the Dominicans finally decided to expand beyond the walled city, fully aware that their university had failed to keep up with the times. The historian Jose Victor Torres quotes the then rector, Fr. Serapio Tamayo, O.P.: “One of the reasons that contributed to the forming of an unfavorable concept of our University is the ancient building in which it is installed.”

Reforms were agonizingly slow. Amid the lack of funds, the first building in the new, donated campus at Sampaloc, Manila did not go up until 1927. When the Main Building was inaugurated, it was an architectural marvel, eclectic and earthquake-proof. On top is a cross, symbolizing UST's loyalty to the Gospel. It cost P1.5 million, eating up the budget for the entire campus.

Women were not admitted until 1924, at around the same time when the Spanish-speaking professors were forced to switch, finally, to English as the medium of instruction. The entry of women to the university led to the opening of the College of Education.

It was only in 1971 when the Spanish Dominicans relinquished power and allowed a Filipino Dominican, Leonardo Legaspi (now archbishop of Caceres) to become Rector.

UST has since moved away from its elitist beginnings. Whereas before it was mainly for the children of the ruling class, it now educates the children of the middle class. At the same time it is deeply in touch with its history, unapologetic of its past. After all, it helped build a nation by educating its first leaders and has remained a bastion of the Catholic faith.

Today enrollment is rising and tens of thousands of applicants compete for limited slots. UST is the largest producer of licensed professionals after the State University. There are plans to branch out to Sta. Rosa, Laguna and General Santos. UST has not only existed for 400 years, it has prevailed -- imbued, as the UST hymn says, with “unending grace.”

BusinessWorld