The University of the Philippines (Unibersidad ng Pilipinas in Filipino, commonly abbreviated as U.P. and colloquially referred to as Peyups) is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No. 1870 of the First Philippine Legislature, known as the "University Act" by authority of the United States, the University currently provides the largest number of degree programs in the country. Senate Resolution No. 276 of the Senate of the Philippines recognizes the University as "the nation’s premier university".
Seven (7) of fifteen (15) Philippine Presidents have attended courses in the University either as undergraduates or as postgraduate students, while 13 Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, 36 out of the 57 National Artists and 34 out of the 35 National Scientists are affiliated with the University.
U.P. has the most National Centers of Excellence and Development among higher education institutions in the country and one of only three schools in Asia that have received institutional recognition in the Ramon Magsaysay Awards.
U.P. is partly subsidized by the Philippine government. Students of the university and its graduates are referred to as “ Iskolar ng Bayan” (“Scholars of the Nation”). This makes admission into the University extremely competitive. In 2006, about 70,000 applicants flocked to test centers to take the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT) for undergraduate admission. Around 11,000 of the applicants were admitted for the year 2006, an acceptance rate of about 18% for the whole of the U.P. System.
The symbol of U.P. is the Oblation. This is a figure of a naked man, with arms outstretched and face pointed upwards. The Oblation is based on the second stanza of Jose Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios.
The year 2008 was proclaimed as the "U.P. Centennial Year" and the years 1998-2008 as the "University of the Philippines Decade." The U.P. System is ranked as the top university in the country by the QS World University Rankings.
Read more about University Of The Philippines: History, Constituent Universities, Organization, Academics, Notable Alumni
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“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)