History of University of Santo Tomas - Founder

Founder

Further information: Miguel de Benavides

Although a few Dominican Missionaries worked together to establish the University – including Fr. Miguel de Benavides, Fr. Bernardo Navarro, and other old professors from the higher colleges and universities in Spain – the founding of the University is attributed mainly to Fr. Miguel de Benavides, the first to give a fund for the maintenance of the institution.

Miguel de Benavides was born in 1550 in the Castilian town of Carrion de los Condes, province of Palencia, Spain, in the heart of the austere, grain-producing Tierra de Campos. Benavides is Spanish Dominican steeped in the theological principles of Vitoria and Las Casas, who exchanged the prestigious professorial chair for remote and difficult new missions of the Philippines. He was chosen to govern the newly created Diocese of Nueva Segovia (now Vigan) as its First Bishop (1595–1601). He wrote the Doctrina Christiana in Chinese, the first book printed in the Philippines.

Later, he was promoted to be the Third Archbishop of Manila (1602–1605). On July 26, 1605, Benavides died.

In an appearance before King Philip II, he obtained a royal decree ordering the holding a referendum in the Philippines towards political self-determination. It took place in 1599. The people chose to be under the sovereignty and protection of the monarch. This event was the only plebiscite known in the entire colonial history before the 20th century.

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