Philippine Medical School On December 1, 1905, the Philippine Medical School was established under Commonwealth Act No. 1415. It opened on June 10, 1907, and was housed at the School for the Deaf and Blind located on Malecon Drive (now
Bonifacio Drive). On June 18, 1908, the
Philippine Assembly passed the Act No. 1870, also known as the University Charter, marking the birth of the
University of the Philippines. The Act renamed the Philippine Medical School as the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and Surgery. The control and management of the medical school was entrusted to the University of the Philippines Board of Regents on December 8, 1910. Its name was shortened to the University of the Philippines College of Medicine on March 1, 1923. UP opened its doors in 1909 with the School of Fine Arts, the College of Liberal Arts, College of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Engineering and the College of Law. It also operates the UP College of Agriculture in Los Baños, Laguna. These schools and colleges, established on different locations, were transferred to the UP Campus along
Pedro Gil Street,
Ermita,
Manila on July 1, 1910, except for the College of Agriculture. In 1907, the US government passed a law establishing the
Philippine General Hospital (PGH). It was founded by Dean C. Worcester, an American who was a member of the United States Philippine Commission. On September 1, 1910, the 350-bed capacity hospital was opened to the public for health care delivery and clinical instruction and training of medical students. Dr. Paul Freer served as its first Medical School Dean until 1912. On February 5, 1915, the Philippine Legislative Act No. 2467 reorganized the Training School for Nurses into the PGH School of Nursing and established it as a department of PGH. A few years later, in 1914, 1915 and 1927, the School of Pharmacy, Department of Dentistry and the School of Public Health were created, respectively, under the
UP College of Medicine. These units eventually became full-fledged degree-granting units in 1935, 1948, and 1932, respectively.
World War II The university was destroyed during the
Battle of Manila in 1945. However, the College of Medicine under then Dean, Dr. Antonio G. Sison, and PGH were still able to fulfill their mandate of attending to the injured and the sick. On December 15, 1948, much the university transferred to its sprawling 493 hectare campus in Diliman, Quezon City. Three units, Medicine, Dentistry and Public Health, were left behind in the war-torn UP Campus in Manila. On the 40th anniversary of the University of the Philippines in 1949, the original
Oblation was transferred to UP's
Diliman Campus in
Quezon City from its original site along Padre Faura Street in Manila as a symbol of transfer of administrative seat. 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 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==