University of the Philippines Manila

The University of the Philippines Manila (UP Manila or UPM; ) 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. In 1979, the campus was reorganized as the Health Sciences Center, becoming the second autonomous constituent unit of the UP System. 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 (NIH). 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 (1962), housed then at the National Orthopedic Hospital (now called the Philippine Orthopedic Center), 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

thumb|To accommodate more students and functions, UPM is constructing high-rise buildings. The new Medical Sciences Building of the College of Medicine was finished in 2022.

thumb|PGH converted several wards in the Main Block Building to accommodate COVID-19 cases.

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. In March 2021, the first official COVID-19 vaccine in the Philippines was administered at PGH to its director, Dr. Gerardo Legaspi.

Campus

thumb|left|Aerial view of the campus.

The University of the Philippines Manila is situated in the bustling area of Ermita, Manila. Its campus This was followed by the construction of the University Hall (now Department of Justice) 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 (NHCP) declared several sites within the campus as heritage zones and were listed in the National Registry of Historic Sites and Structures in the Philippines.

File:PGH_Cancer_Institute_Building.jpg |Cancer Institute

File:UP_Manila_Museum_of_a_History_of_Ideas.JPG|Old Dentistry Building

File:Salcedo Hall UPM.jpg|Juan Salcedo Hall

File:FvfUPManila8810_04.JPG|Fernando Calderon Hall

File:Lara Hall UPM.jpg|Hilario Lara Hall

File:UP Manila National Institutes of Health building.jpg|National Institutes of Health

File:Ph-mm-manila-ermita-taft ave.-philippine general hospital (up-pgh) (2014).JPG| Philippine General Hospital

File:PGH Nurses Home.jpg|Nurses' Home

File:University of the Philippines (Manila Campus) - Main Building (Pedro Gil, Ermita, Manila; 2014-10-20).jpg| Rizal Hall

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The maintenance and planning for campus buildings are provided by the UP Manila Campus Planning, Development and Maintenance Office (CPDMO) 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.

Academic facilities and satellite campuses

thumb|Old PGH medical equipment are exhibited in the UP Manila Museum of a History of Ideas.

thumb|The UPM School of Health Sciences main campus in Palo, Leyte.

The UP Manila University Library and its nine college-based units compose the campus's library network, and as of October 2000 the library has a total collection of 189,874 volumes, including videos, sound recordings, and photographs. Since 1995, the University Library was a member of the Department of Science and Technology – Engineering, Science and Education Library Network Project. The UP College Medicine Library, officially as the Dr. Florentino B. Herrera, Jr. Medical Library, is a center for the study of medical and clinical sciences, and its collections are particularly strong in the subjects of basic and clinical biomedical subjects. It occupies the building adjacent to the University Library. Both library buildings were permanently closed in 2016, after they were endangered when the foundation of the nearby under-construction UP College of Medicine Academic Center sank.

On October 22, 2014, the university inaugurated the UP Manila Museum of a History of Ideas. The museum showcases the contributions of the University of the Philippines to the critical imagination that shaped the Philippines as a nation in the early 20th century. It was opened to the public on December 2, 2014.

The Philippine General Hospital has also several planned expansions beyond its Manila headquarters. In 2019, a PGH polyclinic named the Philippine General Hospital Satellite for Sports Medicine and Wellness (PGH-SSMW) was opened to serve the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. The university also aims to build PGH branches in Los Baños and Diliman to build a hospital network to service UP constituents. However, the construction of PGH Diliman is facing scrutiny due to its impact to a protected forest area and its prioritization over upgrade of the current Manila facility.

Academics

thumb|Calderon Hall, the home of the UP College of Medicine. The college is the first Center of Excellence for Medicine in the country.

thumb|Sotejo Hall, home of the College of Nursing. The college is a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Leadership in Nursing Development.

UP Manila offers 79 health-related undergraduate and graduate programs in nine degree-granting units. The university's academic units are broadly organized into seven colleges, the National Teacher Training Center for Health Professions, and the School of Health Sciences. The Philippine General Hospital and National Institutes of Health also form part of the university as training and research centers. As the leading institution for medical education and research, UP Manila is regarded as the National Health Sciences Center of the Philippines and designated as one of the four pillars of the Metro Manila Health Research and Development Consortium.

UP Manila develops programs that serve as models and benchmarks of health education and health care in the Philippines. Many of the pioneering curricular programs are offered only in the university even until now, such as the seven-year Integrated Arts and Medicine (INTARMED) Program, MS in Medical Informatics, MS in bioethics, Master of Rehabilitation Science, MS in Clinical Audiology, and MA in Health Policy Studies. The university also offered the first baccalaureate programs in nursing, organizational communication, and public health in the Philippines. Moreover, the UPM School of Health Sciences offers the first stepladder health sciences curriculum in Asia that allows students to take integrated courses on community health work, midwifery, nursing, and community medicine towards a Doctor of Medicine degree. Its community-oriented programs have been lauded worldwide for directly admitting scholars from targeted poor communities in need of health professionals.

UP Manila units are also nationally and internationally recognized. The College of Medicine and the College of Nursing has been recognized by the Commission on Higher Education as National Centers of Excellence since 2001. The College of Public Health also hosts the SEAMEO-Tropmed Regional Centre for Public Health, Hospital Administration, Environmental and Occupational Health.

Admissions

Admission to the university is very selective. Prospective undergraduate students must pass the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT), which is part of the admission requirements for all the component units of the University of the Philippines System.

An applicant for the Doctor of Medicine program can enter through direct entry at Learning Unit 1, where only high school graduates from the top male and female UPCAT scorers are accepted, or lateral entry at Learning Unit 3, where college graduates who passed the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) are accepted. On the other hand, the School of Health Sciences directly admits scholars nominated by the far-flung communities served by its campuses. Students who will benefit from this program are expected to render a one-year "return service" to the Philippines for every cash grants he or she receives. The program, although separate in nature, is still a part of the ₱8.3 billion free tuition program for undergraduate students in all state universities and colleges nationwide, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which prompted the university to stop collecting tuition fees to all undergraduate students indefinitely.

Research

thumb|The new building of the National Institutes of Health is currently under construction.

In research, UP Manila has been pursuing its mandate by generating and disseminating knowledge and technologies that can effectively contribute to the improvement of the quality of life of Filipinos. Its research outputs have greatly influenced the thrusts and directions of national health care programs and have been used as basis for policy formulation and implementation.

The research units of UP Manila are housed in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also serves as the national health research center of the Philippines. As governed by the Health Research and Development Act of 1998, NIH conducts biomedical and public health research intended improve Philippine health services, promotion, and systems. The Manila Studies Program, a regional studies research center based in the College of Arts and Sciences, also conducts research and projects on heritage, urban development, and policy-related issues.

As the national university, UP Manila also provides technical support and research on health legislation. UP Manila research experts have worked towards the passage of the Newborn Screening Act in 2004, Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Intervention Act of 2009, and the Rare Diseases Act of the Philippines of 2016 among others. UP Manila has also strongly opposed the conduct of local scientific studies and the legalization of medical marijuana.

Researches which exerted the biggest national impact on Philippine health care include several research-based program recommendations generated through the national surveys on blindness and the studies on Hepatitis B, diarrhea, and common parasitic infections, which were adopted by the Department of Health; commercialization of five herbal medicinal formulations (lagundi, yerba buena, tsaang gubat, sambong and akapulko); textbooks and instructional manuals which are also used by other academic institutions; and the performance evaluation of PhilHealth, the country's national health insurance program. Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the National Institutes Health has produced various research on COVID-19 testing, healthcare, and vaccination. NIH also locally produced coronavirus test kits and ventilators to address the lack of health supplies and equipment.

Rankings and reputation

UP Manila is recognized as one of the top higher education institutions in the country and the region. The Center for World University Ranking (CWUR) ranks UPM as second among all Philippine universities and 1,648th worldwide.

Student life

UP Manila is a part on the University Belt, a de facto sub-district of the City of Manila where there is a high concentration or a cluster of colleges and universities.

Activism

Students of UP Manila are known for their activism, since the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the Court of Appeals, and the Department of Justice are located within its grounds. The university has plenty of student groups focused on political change. It also has a variety of partisan groups ranging from liberal to conservative, and several third party organizations.

People

{| class="toccolours" style="float:right; margin-left:1em; font-size:90%; line-height:1.4em; width:300px;"

! colspan="2" style="text-align:center; background:#800000;"| <span style="color:#fff;">University of the Philippines Manila<br />Chancellors</span>

| Name || Tenure of office

| colspan="2" |<hr>

| Conrado Ll. Lorenzo, Jr. || 1984-1987

| Ernesto O. Domingo || 1987–1993

| Perla D. Santos-Ocampo || 1993-1999

| Alfredo T. Ramirez || 1999-2002

| Marita V. T. Reyes || 2002-2005

| Ramon L. Arcadio || 2005–2011

| Manuel B. Agulto || 2011–2014

| Carmencita M. David-Padilla || 2014–2023

|Michael L. Tee

|2023-present

| colspan="2" | <hr>

| style="font-size:70%" | References ||

The university has produced remarkable alumni in their respective fields. The 10th and current chancellor of the university is Dr. Michael L. Tee, who succeeded Dr. Carmencita M. Padilla, a National Scientist, in 2023.

20th century

Notable people from UP Manila include Elpidio Quirino, the sixth President of the Philippines, who graduated from the university with a law degree in 1915. Fe del Mundo, a pediatrician, was known as the first woman to be admitted as a student in Harvard Medical School, and was the founder of the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines. She graduated from the university in 1933 as valedictorian of her class. In 1924, Alejandro Melchor, who served as a Secretary of National Defense, obtained his civil engineering degree with the highest honors at that time when the UP College of Engineering was still based in Manila. Other notable UP Manila alumni includes Martino Abellana, a renowned Cebuano painter, and Trinidad Tarrosa-Subido, a linguist and poet.

21st century

Political figures who were graduates of UP Manila include Jinggoy Estrada, a Philippine Senator, and Enrique Manalo, who served as the Undersecretary for Policy of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Revolutionary leader Nur Misuari was also a graduate of UP Manila, who obtained his political science degree in 1962.

UP Manila alumni who served in the field of medical and health profession include three Secretaries of the Department of Health: Juan Flavier (1992-1995), who also served as a Senator from 1995 to 2007, Esperanza Cabral (2009-2010), and Enrique Ona (2010 to 2014).

Americans who graduated from UP Manila include two Brigadier General of the United States Air Force: Van N. Backman who obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1955, and Patricia C. Lewis, who earned her master's degree from the university in 1977. Ernesto Domingo, a National Scientist of the Philippines, also graduated from the university. Alfredo Bengzon, the President and CEO of The Medical City obtained his doctor of medicine degree from the university. UPM alumni in academia include Paulo Campos, who was known for his work on nuclear medicine, Luciano P.R. Santiago, and Gregorio F. Zaide. The latter two are multi-awarded historians. In film, entertainment, and television, UPM is represented by comedian actress Maricel Laxa, and Vinci Montaner, a founding member of the band Parokya ni Edgar. Other prominent graduates include Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an international activist for Igorot ethnicity and Norman King, the first Aeta graduate of the entire university system.

Some people, such as Diosdado Macapagal, the 9th Philippine President, Paz Latorena, a writer, and Grace Poe, a senator, attended UPM but did not graduate. Internationally recognized actor Elijah Canlas is currently taking BA Philippine Arts at the university.

File:ElpidioQuirino.jpg|Elpidio Quirino, 6th president of the Philippines

File:Official photo of Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada.jpg|Jinggoy Estrada, Senator of the Philippines

File:Vicky Tauli-Corpuz in Kuala-Lumpur.jpg|Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, international indigenous activist of Igorot ethnicity

File:Nur misuari.jpg|Nur Misuari, Moro revolutionary politician

File:Patricia C Lewis.jpg|USAF Brigadier General Patricia C. Lewis

File:BGEN Backman, Van.JPG|USAF Brigadier General Van N. Backman