The University of the Philippines on Tuesday officially broke ground for the development of a professional schools campus at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.
Vice President Jejomar Binay, an alumnus of the State University, led the groundbreaking ceremonies. The new UP Professional Schools campus will be developed on a 4,300-square-meter lot on the northeast side of the BGC. It will rise alongside schools already in the area, such as the British School Manila, the International School Manila, and the Manila Japanese School.
The professional schools campus will primarily host post-graduate students and programs for UP's colleges of law, business, and engineering, as well as from its school of statistics.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremonies - which was attended by UP President Alfredo Pascual, Bases Conversion and Development Authority President and CEO Arnel Casanova, and Senators Franklin Drilon and Edgardo Angara, a former president of UP - Vice President Binay said, "we shall soon have in the heart of this great metropolis, a new UP campus sparkling with modern structures dedicated solely to post-graduate professional studies.
He singled out the BCDA for working with UP in the realization of the new campus. The development at the BGC was also facilitated by Senators Frank Drilon and Ed Angara, "who will never allow themselves to be outdone when it comes to any project involving the University of the Philippines," Binay said.
The Vice President said the Professional Schools development "is something that makes every UP alumnus stand a little taller and more upright - even those who share my physical size and height."
"In the not too distant future, when we speak of great scholars of the law, we would be speaking no longer of erudite men and women who had gone to Yale or Harvard or some distinguished graduate school abroad. We would be speaking rather of distinguished scholars who have honed their legal expertise in our UP Graduate School of Law in Global City or Taguig," Binay added. "But in speaking of what I hope this new UP campus can accomplish, I hope no one among us will want to suggest that UP Taguig or UP Global City will simply add to the number of university campuses in the Philippines. I would ask all of us to make sure that this new campus will add strength -the greatest strength if possible - to our universities, and to the way our society values, uses and reproduces knowledge."
At the same time, the Vice President said: "I would further ask all of us here, as well as our friends who are not here now, to make sure that such strength - or the development of such strength - is supported adequately with all the resources within our reach... In a country like our own, a great part of these funds will come not as a gift of personal or corporate philanthropy from a single source. A great part will come from many sources, in response to our own dedicated effort, individually and collectively, to find generous donors like the BCDA to make sizeable, self-renewing and long-term endowments."
source: interaksyon.com
