June 30, 2019 — A single glance at UP Manila’s buildings gives insight into the long and winding history that the campus has borne witness to. These buildings, if given the power to speak, could tell more information than could ever be stored in a library. 

In celebration of the campus’ structural heritage, the Office of the Chancellor, in time with UP’s 111th Founding Anniversary, organized a Walking Tour around the campus to give students, faculty, and staff an experiential lecture on UPM’s history. 

Prof. Celia M. Bonilla of the Department of Arts and Communication, in what she termed her “Lec-Tour” (being for the first part a lecture concerned with the then, and for the second part a tour around the now), talked about the evolution of Manila from being the selected capital for the Spanish colonial government to being the nation’s center for education and health research, under the Americans and finally to being ravaged by the violence of war in the 1940s. All this provides the context within which unfolded the story of UP. 
After the lecture, the attendees toured the UP Manila Museum of a History of Ideas and the Supreme Court. The building that is now the Museum served as the University Infirmary until it was converted, out of necessity, into the university’s emergency administrative headquarters during World War II. It also housed the College of Dentistry before finally being turned into the museum. The Supreme Court was once the University Library before the changes brought about in part by the Commonwealth Era and the war.

Through polished pillars, well-kept statues, and meticulously conserved wall carvings, the constant care given to these buildings’ neoclassical features becomes apparent. The buildings’ stories are thus preserved for decades to come, completing the pieces that make up the history of UP, of Manila, and of the Philippines as a whole.
 

Hazel Juris Domingo | Published in UP Manila Healthscape May – June 2019