University of the Philippines Manila
The University of the Philippines Manila is a public research university located in Ermita, Manila, Philippines. It is the oldest of eight constituent universities of the University of the Philippines System and serves as the primary institution for health sciences within the system.
While the University of the Philippines was formally established by the University Act of 1908, the Manila campus traces its institutional origins to the establishment of UP’s Manila-based colleges and school between 1909 and 1911, as the capital city was the intended site for the university's main operations. The earliest college of UP Manila, the College of Medicine, originated as the Philippine Medical School predating the formal establishment of UP. It was founded in 1905, began operations in 1907 under the American colonial government, and was later reorganized under UP.
In 1979, the campus was reorganized as the Health Sciences Center, becoming the second autonomous constituent unit of the UP System. It was officially renamed the University of the Philippines Manila in 1983. Its academic programs are primarily concentrated in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, nursing, and the allied health sciences, offering a range of undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees.
UP Manila administers and operates the Philippine General Hospital, the largest public hospital in the Philippines and the country’s national referral center for tertiary health care. The university is also home to the National Institutes of Health, which played a central role in early COVID-19 testing and continues to conduct health research across a wide range of biomedical and public health fields.
Its 14-hectare campus occupies two large city blocks. The campus contains pre-war heritage buildings and structures built during the American Period and designed by American architect William E. Parsons. These were declared to be historical landmarks by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
Since 2001, the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing have been recognized as Centers of Excellence by the Commission on Higher Education.
History
Philippine Medical School
On December 1, 1905, the Philippine Medical School was established under Commonwealth Act No. 1415. It opened on June 10, 1907, and was housed at the School for the Deaf and Blind located on Malecon Drive. On June 18, 1908, the Philippine Assembly passed the Act No. 1870, also known as the University Charter, marking the birth of the University of the Philippines. The Act renamed the Philippine Medical School as the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and Surgery. The control and management of the medical school was entrusted to the University of the Philippines Board of Regents on December 8, 1910. Its name was shortened to the University of the Philippines College of Medicine on March 1, 1923.UP opened its doors in 1909 with the School of Fine Arts, the College of Liberal Arts, College of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Engineering and the College of Law. It also operates the UP College of Agriculture in Los Baños, Laguna. These schools and colleges, established on different locations, were transferred to the UP Campus along Pedro Gil Street, Ermita, Manila on July 1, 1910, except for the College of Agriculture.
In 1907, the US government passed a law establishing the Philippine General Hospital. It was founded by Dean C. Worcester, an American who was a member of the United States Philippine Commission. On September 1, 1910, the 350-bed capacity hospital was opened to the public for health care delivery and clinical instruction and training of medical students. Dr. Paul Freer served as its first Medical School Dean until 1912. On February 5, 1915, the Philippine Legislative Act No. 2467 reorganized the Training School for Nurses into the PGH School of Nursing and established it as a department of PGH. A few years later, in 1914, 1915 and 1927, the School of Pharmacy, Department of Dentistry and the School of Public Health were created, respectively, under the UP College of Medicine. These units eventually became full-fledged degree-granting units in 1935, 1948, and 1932, respectively.
World War II
The university was destroyed during the Battle of Manila in 1945. However, the College of Medicine under then Dean, Dr. Antonio G. Sison, and PGH were still able to fulfill their mandate of attending to the injured and the sick. On December 15, 1948, much the university transferred to its sprawling 493 hectare campus in Diliman, Quezon City. Three units, Medicine, Dentistry and Public Health, were left behind in the war-torn UP Campus in Manila. On the 40th anniversary of the University of the Philippines in 1949, the original Oblation was transferred to UP's Diliman Campus in Quezon City from its original site along Padre Faura Street in Manila as a symbol of transfer of administrative seat. In April 1948, the UP College of Nursing, which established in the Diliman Campus, instituted the first baccalaureate program in Nursing in the Philippines. More academic units were established in the 1960s. These included the School of Allied Medical Professions, housed then at the National Orthopedic Hospital, and the Philippine Eye Research Institute in 1965.Health Sciences Center
With the clamor to meet the health science education needs of the growing population, a Health Sciences Center within the University of the Philippines was created through the passage of RA 5163 on June 17, 1967. It was mandated to seek and emphasize the highest standards of training and research in the various health sciences. However, the Center at the Diliman Campus did not materialize due to fiscal constraints.In 1972, the UP College Manila was instituted as the first extension unit to offer liberal arts courses. Thereafter, UP was reorganized into the University of the Philippines System to effect institutional unity, while allowing decentralization of authority and autonomy of the component units through Presidential Decree No. 58, promulgated on November 20, 1972, under the administration of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. It was approved by the Board of Regents at its 828th meeting on November 21, 1972, and was implemented on January 1, 1973.
Contemporary history
Since 2001, the College of Medicine and the College of Nursing are recognized as Centers of Excellence by the Commission on Higher Education. In addition, the College of Nursing is a WHO Collaborating Center for Leadership in Nursing Development in the Asia-Pacific region. The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization named the College of Public Health as the SEAMEO-TROPMED Regional Center for Public Health, Hospital Administration, and Environmental and Occupational Health. The National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions is a WHO Regional Education Development Center for Health Professions Education.The centennial celebration of the University of the Philippines began on January 8, 2008. As part of UP's centenary, an Oblation statue in front of the Philippine General Hospital was unveiled in December 2008.
In 2013, UP Manila was badly criticized when Kristel Tejada, a 16-year-old behavioral sciences student, committed suicide because she couldn't pay for her tuition fee for the second semester and was left with no choice but to drop out of school. The Tejada family also has to pay the loan Kristel had taken for her first semester tuition. This event led to numerous student protests nationwide, mostly coming from the state universities and colleges, and the students from the UP System. The university was later pressured to lift its "no-late-payment" policy on tuition.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, UP Manila became fundamental to the country's primary healthcare response. In March 2020, the UPM National Institutes of Health was designated COVID testing center and started COVID testing through its locally produced SARS CoV-2 PCR Detection Kit. Later that month, the Department of Health assigned the Philippine General Hospital as COVID-19 referral center for Metro Manila. To make room for COVID patient wards, PGH temporarily suspended outpatient and elective surgery services and offered teleconsultations instead. The hospital, which already lacked spaces for patients, suffered patient overcrowding while it remained understaffed. Through the years, PGH workers also protested against low salaries, job contracting, delayed hazard pay and COVID-19 benefits, insufficient equipment, and budget cuts.
To address the lack of funding and equipment, several UPM units developed different COVID-19 technologies, including the GenAmplify™ COVID-19 rRT-PCR Detection Kit; OstreaVent II; Mechanical Ambu Bag Insufflator; Ginhawa Ventilator; SIBOL innovations such as the RxBox-Telemetry, SIBOL Telepresence, Powered Air-Purifying Respirator, SaniPod, E-Steth Project, and Ultraviolet Irradiation Cabinet; UP Manila Bayanihan Na! Employee Symptoms Tracking System ; and PGH Bayanihan Center Current Inventory Levels and Donations Tracker. In March 2021, the first official COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines was administered at PGH to its director, Dr. Gerardo Legaspi.
Campus
The University of the Philippines Manila is situated in the bustling area of Ermita, Manila. Its campus of which 10 ha is reserved for the Philippine General Hospital and the National Institutes of Health. It is the second largest university campus in the City of Manila after the University of Santo Tomas. The campus is bounded by United Nations Avenue to the north, Taft Avenue to the east, María Orosa Avenue and Robinsons Place Manila to the west and by Pedro Gil Street to the south. The university is served by the United Nations and Pedro Gil Station of the LRT Line 1.UP Manila buildings vary in age from the American era buildings built in early 1900s to high rise facilities in 2020s. Most of UPM's buildings are designed in Neoclassical style, a theme which has been preserved in recent architectural additions. Many buildings in the campus were designed by American Architect William E. Parsons, in accordance with the Burnham Plan of Manila. The Calderon Hall of the College of Medicine and the Administration Building of the Philippine General Hospital were the first buildings constructed on the campus site. PGH became the template for many tropical hospitals in Asia and tropical America. This was followed by the construction of the University Hall and Rizal Hall in the Padre Faura Street, both used by most UP colleges and executive offices before the World War II. In 2013, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines declared several sites within the campus as heritage zones and were listed in the National Registry of Historic Sites and Structures in the Philippines.
The maintenance and planning for campus buildings are provided by the UP Manila Campus Planning, Development and Maintenance Office It manages the creation of spaces that support and enhance teaching, research, and public service activities of UP Manila. It is also tasked to recover the lots and heritage buildings that belongs to the university which are now occupied by the National Bureau of Investigation, Court of Appeals, Department of Justice, and the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The Supreme Court has announced its plans to vacate its UP Campus site in Manila and move to the Bonifacio Capital District in Taguig with the Court of Appeals upon the completion of their new state-of-the-art building. The Department of Justice is also slated to move to New Clark City. CPDMO is located on the former UP College of Dentistry Annex Building, which was constructed in the 1960s.