University of Manila

As the country’s leading institution in health education, research, and public service, UP Manila seeks to contribute significantly to the improvement of the people’s health and help the country sustain its health gains. How the university fulfills this mission is a huge and constant challenge to its faculty, staff, students, and alumni and which this website seeks to affirm.

We hope that you will find in this website relevant information and facts on our graduate and undergraduate programs, admission and enrolment processes, student services, scholarships, researches, public service programs, and the distinguished alumni that UP Manila had produced and nurtured through the years.

No student shall be denied admission to the University by reason of age, sex, nationality, religious belief or political affiliation. Every applicant for admission shall undergo a thorough health examination. No person shall be admitted to this University found by the University Health Service to be with a dangerous, communicable, contagious or infectious disease or who is physically unfit to take the courses in any college of the University.

The University of the Philippines Manila has been offering graduate programs since 1930. These programs have been directly under the administration and governance of the different colleges offering them. In 1985, a nationwide survey of graduate degree programs offered by the different colleges and universities in the health sciences showed that existing graduate offerings in the health and health-related professions of non-UP Manila institutions were very limited.

When UP Manila was reorganized in 1987, an Office of Graduate and Continuing Education (OGCE) was created to coordinate its graduate and continuing education programs. The OGCE was chaired by Dr Ophelia M. Mendoza. When Dr Perla D. Santos Ocampo assumed the chancellorship in September 1993, the need to upgrade the OGCE into a graduate school was expressed in consonance with the current thrust of the University to lead in graduate education and research.

The proposal for the establishment of a graduate school in UP Manila was approved by the Board of Regents on 22 June 1995. On 27 July 1995, Dr Veronica F. Chan, a professor of Microbiology and Virology at the College of Public Health (CPH), was appointed acting dean of the Graduate School. She drafted the rules and regulations governing the Graduate School in consultation with the deans of the different degree-granting units. The rules were subsequently approved by the University Council of UP Manila.

A year after this creation, Dr Isidro C. Sia, a professor of Pharmacology at the College of Medicine (CM), was appointed Dean of the Graduate School. Appointed as Graduate School Secretary was Prof Ma. Estela M. Layug of the College of Nursing (CN) until she was designated as the UPM Registrar. Dr. Lilia M. Reyes (CPH) took over her post and later on became the officer-in-charge of the Graduate School on 18 December 1997. In September 1998, Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Dr. Lourdes E. Abadingo, served as the officer-in-charge until Dr. Emilie G. Flores, a professor of Nutrition (CPH), was appointed dean in November 1998.

The Graduate School, in coordination with the eight degree-granting units, enriched existing graduate programs and developed new programs attuned to meet the health manpower needs of the country and that of the Southeast Asian countries.Chancellor Santos Ocampo strongly felt the timely need and relevance of a national status of the Graduate School to accelerate the development of a globally competitive graduate education system for UP Manila. The change in status would better uphold the UP vision of becoming the apex and base of the Philippines education system. Briefing documents were developed by Dr. Flores after a series of consultations with key persons from different colleges of the different autonomous units of the UP System, Commission on Higher Education, and some private institutions. With the continued support from Chancellor Santos Ocampo and then UP President Emil Q.Javier, the Graduate School was transmogrified into the National Graduate School for the Health Sciences (NGSHS). The Board of Regents in its 1130th meeting approved the national status of the Graduate School on 15 April 1999.

At present, of the 84 graduate science courses being offered by the country’s 88 institutions, 66 are being administered by UP Manila, through the efforts of its 1,051 full-time and part-time graduate faculty from eight degree-granting units.The graduate programs include 8 doctoral tracks, 39 masters, 9 diploma, 3 certificate courses, and 1 basic course.The final year of both Chancellor Santos Ocampo and President Javier gave birth to the development of various non-vertically articulated graduate programs. Twenty-one (21) new graduate program tracks were developed from November 1998 to May 1999 by the different degree-granting units in coordination with the NGSHS for AY 1999-2000 offerings. Four of these new programs are non-vertically articulated, multidisciplinary programs.

The Board of Regents in its 1171st meeting approved the conversion of the national status of the Graduate School to National Graduate Office for the Health Sciences (NGOHS) on 30 May 2003. Under her three-year term, several programs were also opened, such as Diploma in Bioethics and Diploma in Preventive Ophthalmology. Marketing strategies became more assertive by giving out promotional posters and newspaper advertisements. When Dr. Isidro C. Sia took over as Director, additional masters program were the introduced: MS Health Informatics, MS Bioethics, M Physical Therapy, MS Genetic Counseling, M Medical Anthropology, and MS Medical Anthropology.

Riding high on the crest of academic excellence, the UP Manila NGOHS shall continue to pursue growth points responsive to the demands for excellence and leadership in the health science professions with the ardent synergistic strengths of humanities, arts, and social sciences. It envisions to create a ripple effect at the threshold of the century as it expands globally competitive role in teaching, research, extension and production of technology that can improve the quality of life.