Don Bosco Technical College

Don Bosco Technical College Mandaluyong (DBTC) is a private Catholic educational institution in Manila, Philippines, owned and operated by the Salesians of Don Bosco.DBTC offers all-boys Elementary and an academic and technical curriculum Junior High School education, co-educational Senior High and Tertiary education, as well as Vocational Training for out-of-school youth. Don Bosco Technical College-Mandaluyong is the first Don Bosco Educational Center in Metro Manila.

We are an ASEAN-recognized and learner-centered institute of technological and technical education.Following the Salesian charism, we form an Educative-Pastoral Community of lifelong learners and agents of social change. Faithful to Catholic teachings, we champion holistic personal growth and integral ecology. Mindful of our Filipino heritage, we promote active participation and collaboration of all to uphold social justice and equity.We work for total human development, by providing an academically vigorous and innovative environment that forms the young to be qualified and competent workers, entrepreneurs and professionals who embody the ideals of justice with charity, prosperity with integrity, and technology with a soul.

Don Bosco Technical College stands on historic and hallowed grounds. The 18th century Spanish building (1716) at the heart of the campus is a testimony to events that led to the 1896 uprising of the country’s patriots, the Katipuneros, against the Spanish colonizers. The building later became the Asilo de Mandaloya, an orphanage where the saintly Mother Consuelo Barcelo y Pages stayed for 16 years (1883-1899). She cofounded the Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation. Her cause for canonization has been introduced. Early in the 20th century, the building became the San Carlos Seminary, home for the formation of the local clergy. One of them was Rufino Cardinal Santos, the first Filipino cardinal of the Church.Don Bosco-Mandaluyong opened as a school on 2 June 1953 with 47 first year high school students. More and more students heard of this different school, with an innovative dual academic and technical curriculum. By its first graduation in 1957, the enrollment for the elementary and high school levels increased tremendously, representing a cross section and a happy blend of the poor and the affluent. From its crude beginning, the Salesian work in Mandaluyong immediately gained efficiency and prominence. By January 1954, feast of the Epiphany, Fr. Mario Acquistapace, SDB (Provincial Superior), declared Don Bosco-Mandaluyong “the motherhouse of the Salesian works in the Philippines.”

Since its foundation, Don Bosco-Mandaluyong has grown into a complex setting whose services include the following departments: Grade School, High School, College of Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Manpower Skills and Training Center, Center for Research and Training, Information Systems and Technology Center, together with the Don Bosco Youth Center, St. Dominic Savio Parish, and the Pinardi Boarding House for Migrant Youth.The College Department made history in 2004 with the acceptance of 28 first year females. By going coed, Don Bosco Mandaluyong is giving a statement to a world where women are devalued and degraded that men must relate with women as equal in dignity and complementary in their vocation “pro Deo et patria.”

The primary grades were revived in the Mandaluyong campus in school year 2005-2006. In 1989, seven sections each of grades 1 to 4 were moved to the Salesian Sisters’ school in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Because of the dwindling number of boys enrolling in the primary levels in Don Bosco School Manila, the Mandaluyong campus reopened the primary levels for consistency in character formation and curriculum development, specifically information literacy, as well as for earlier intervention in family life.Don Bosco-Mandaluyong takes pride, too, in its students who have given back to life in no half measures. The names of Roderick Flores and Sigmund Ocasion were included among the twenty-eight “Fruits of the Preventive System” presented as models of holiness to the whole Salesian world by the Rector Major, Fr. Pascual Chavez, SDB, who visited the school on its golden jubilee in 2003.

Giovanni Bosco (Don Bosco) was born to a poor farmer’s family on the 16th of August 1815 in Becchi, in Northern Italy’s countryside, near the city of Turin. After his priestly ordination in 1841, Don Bosco moved to Turin to continue his studies. Part of his work as a priest was to visit the prisons around Turin where young boys were imprisoned together with serious criminals. In the streets, he met homeless boys roaming around aimlessly, most of them were jobless. Don Bosco was profoundly touched by their circumstances and decided to dedicate himself to their wellbeing.

The core of his work was done in the “Oratory” which started as a kind of Sunday school where Don Bosco would meet boys from the street for worship, a breakfast and catechesis. Likewise, by offering vocational training, the boys started to learn a trade and could earn an honest living. As a Catholic priest, Don Bosco used worship, catechesis and confession to teach the boys to become good Christians.Don Bosco developed a pedagogical approach to work with the boys to prevent dysfunctional behavior through a proactive encouragement, not enforcing authority. He called this "The Preventive System".The key element in the system was the constant presence of the educators among the boys. The preventive system is based, as Don Bosco calls it, on the triad: reason, religion and loving kindness.

When his work was growing too big, the congregation of the ‘Salesians’ was founded, followed by the establishment of the order of ‘Salesian Sisters’ and the ‘Salesian Cooperators’ for lay people.When Don Bosco died on the 31st of January 1888, the Don Bosco Movement was only just starting. Today, more than two hundred years after Don Bosco’s death, the Salesians and their Lay Mission Partners are present in 134 countries around the world.