Royal, pontifical, and real (Sabong News)

The 2022 OS World University Rankings surveyed and ranked universities worldwide on the basis of academic reputation (40 percent), employer reputation (10 percent), faculty/student ratio (20 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent), international faculty ratio (five percent), and international student ratio (five percent). Among Philippine universities, only UP was above average, ranking no. 399 among the top 1,300 of the world’s universities. Ateneo de Manila was in the 601-650 category, De la Salle University, in the 801-1,000 group, and the University of Santo Tomas, among the 1001-1200. It’s a bit disappointing considering how we pride ourselves as having the oldest university in Asia, older than Harvard, the United States’ oldest. Harvard ranked fifth and two Singapore universities ranked 11th and 13th—the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, respectively.  I suppose this is an improvement over what José Rizal and his fellow ilustrados went through.  The young Rizal studied at UST and wrote about how it was in El Filibusterismo .  There surely was some exaggeration but per Fili , both students and professors were rather casual. On the week in question, Thursday was a holiday, it rained on Wednesday, and there was no lecture on Friday. Tuesday was the professor’s name-day and the entire class greeted him with an orchestra, a bouquet of flowers, and some gifts.   There was no lab work in the physics class, equipment being nicely dusted and displayed in locked cabinets. The Saturday session was on mirrors and consisted entirely of the interrogation of a poor student who must have gone serenading the night before. Ilustrados might have had to take make-up classes in Spain but UST didn’t seem to do them any harm. Rizal was at UST in the 1870s and education then would have been already improved over the 300 years since the first Philippine university opened its doors. The Jesuits founded the Colegio de Manila in 1596. It became the Universidad Maximo de San Ignacio in 1621 when approved by Pope Gregory XV. A Real Cedula (Royal Warrant) issued by King Philip IV in 1622 permitted it to teach philosophy, theology, Latin, Canon Law, and mathematics. The University was open until the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish colonies, including the Philippines in 1768. In 1601, Colegio de San Jose was founded as an extension school of San Ignacio to prepare young men for the priesthood. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1768, the University was dissolved but the Colegio continued to exist initially as a secular seminary under the Archbishop of Manila. It was later transferred to the Dominicans and merged with the UST Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. The Jesuits were able to recover the Colegio on their return and it still survives as the Seminary College of San Jose within the Ateneo campus at Loyola Heights in Quezon City. The seminary is our oldest continuing operating educational institution.   Colegio de Santo Tomas was founded in 1619 by the second Archbishop of Manila, Miguel de Benavides, O.P. Pope Innocent X approved its upgrading to university status in 1645, hence the title pontifical university. It was initially authorized to offer theology and philosophy but added in 1734 were Canon and Civil Law. King Carlos III conferred the title of Royal Univerity in 1780 and the institution was henceforth known as the “Real y Pontificia Universidad de Santo Tomas.” In 1875, its Faculty of Medicine was created and there were courses offered in business and navigation mathematics in line with the colonial government’s policy of economic development and international trade. The third Philippine university was the University of San Felipe that was founded in 1707 by Real Cedula. It specialized in law but was short-lived, existing only until 1726 when it was absorbed by the University of San Ignacio and the University of Santo Tomas. The Philippines’ oldest university is therefore the Dominicans’ University of Santo Tomas and the oldest educational institution is the Jesuits’ Seminary College of San Jose. The University of Salamanca, model of the early Philippine universities, is in the 651-700 cohort of the 2022 OS World University Rankings, lower than U.P. and Ateneo.  Already, the offspring have gone further than the parent. Rankings depend on the criteria used, but just the same, knowing how one stands is as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Notes: (a) This article is based on Encarnacion Alzona, “El Legado de España a Filipinas” in Filipinas: Su Glorioso Pasado (Manila: Department of Education, 1963); and (b)  Harvard Univesiity, the oldest in the U.S., was founded in 1636.   Comments are cordially invited, addressed to