University of Santo Tomas

The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, or artlessly the University of Santo Tomas (UST), is a private, Roman Catholic analysis university in Manila, Philippines. Founded on 28 April 1611 by Miguel de Benavides, Abbey of Manila, it has the oldest actual university allotment in the Philippines and in Asia, and is one of the world's better Catholic universities in agreement of acceptance begin on one campus.Run by the Order of Preachers, UST is aswell the better university in Manila.

UST is the alone university to accept been visited by three popes four times: already by Pope Paul VI on 28 November 1970, alert by Pope John Paul II on 18 February 1981 and 13 January 1995, and already by Pope Francis on 18 January 2015.The angel of the university is St. Thomas Aquinas, while St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patroness.

The university is composed of several free faculties, colleges, schools and institutes, anniversary appointment undergraduate, alum and postgraduate degrees, and the basal apprenticeship units. Several amount programs accept been accepted by the Commission on College Apprenticeship (CHED) as Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development. Moreover, it was awarded with an Institutional Accreditation by the CHED through the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines. In December 2013, the university was accustomed to accept the accomplished amount of accepted programs in the country by the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities' Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA).

Prominent Thomasians cover saints, Philippine presidents, heroes, artists, scientists, professionals, and religious figures, who accept ample noticeably in the history of the Philippines. The able-bodied teams are the Growling Tigers, who are associates of the University Able-bodied Association of the Philippines and are constant winners of the Overall Championship.

The foundation of the University is ascribed to Miguel de Benavides, O.P., the third Abbey of Manila. He came to the Philippines with the aboriginal Dominican mission in 1587. He went on to become abbey of Nueva Segovia, and was answer abbey of Manila in 1601. Upon his afterlife in July 1605, Benavides ancestral his library and claimed acreage account 1,500 pesos to be acclimated as the berry armamentarium for the enactment of an academy of college learning. Fr. Bernardo de Santa Catalina agitated out Benavides’s wishes and was able to defended a architecture abreast the Dominican abbey and abbey in Intramuros for the College.

In 1609, permission to accessible the College was requested from King Philip III of Spain, which alone accomplished Manila in 1611. On April 28, 1611, agent Juan Illian witnessed the signing of the act of foundation by Baltasar Fort, OP, Bernardo Navarro, OP, and Francisco Minayo, OP. Fort, appointed that year to the column of Father Provincial, became the abbey in 1619.

The Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario was accustomed on April 28, 1611, from the Benavides's library. Later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomás, it was animated by Pope Innocent X to a university on November 20, 1645 in his brief, In Supreminenti. This makes the academy the aboriginal in the islands to be formally animated to the cachet of university.