Rugeria, Javier Leonardo v. 2021. Jose Maria Panganiban's La Universidad de Manila (PSHEV) 2

Philippine Studies: Historical
and Ethnographic Viewpoints

Ateneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines
José María Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” and the

Liberal Campaign for Reforms in Philippine Higher Education
Javier Leonardo V. Rugeria
Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

vol. 69 no. 2 (2021): 221–57
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hello
J AV I E R L EO N A R D O V. R U G E R I A
José María
Panganiban’s
“La Universidad de
Manila” and the
Liberal Campaign for
Reforms in Philippine
Higher Education
This article examines José María Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila”

columns in La Solidaridad and discusses their five salient points of criticism
of the state of higher education at the Universidad de Santo Tomás in the
late nineteenth century. In view of the existing historiography, it argues that
Panganiban’s critique of the university, although born out of propaganda,
finds empirical grounding in his years of study at Santo Tomás from 1882 to
1888. Lastly, it illustrates that Panganiban’s columns represented a wider,
liberal campaign for reforms in Philippine higher education that took place
in Madrid and Barcelona from 1888 to 1891.
KEYWORDS: JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN • UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS •

PROPAGANDA MOVEMENT • PHILIPPINE EDUCATION • SECULARIZATION
Philippine Studies Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 69, NO. 2 (2021) 221–57
© Ateneo de Manila University
B
etween 1887 and 1889, a considerable number of students in
the Faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Civil Law left the
Universidad de Santo Tomás (UST) to pursue their studies in
Spain or elsewhere in Europe.1 This student exodus prompted
speculations in the Peninsula that the university was no longer
able to provide its students quality education and that Dominican orthodoxy
had kept its antiquated ways and impeded scientific freedom. Writing on
22 November 1888, a certain Guillermo Bougarde (1888, 274–85) related
to the university rector, Gregorio Echeverria, OP, that an anonymous, 1888 report
defamatory report purportedly written at the behest of the liberal minister,
Manuel Becerra, was circulating in the office of the Ministerio de Ultramar
(Ministry of Overseas Colonies) in Madrid. According to Bougarde (ibid.),
the report assailed the decadence of the university for it did not implement
the prescribed curriculum in Spanish universities. It gave precedence
instead to the Faculties of Theology and Canon Law, privileging dogmatism
while suppressing academic freedom in the “secular” faculties (ibid.). Such
a regressive state, the report concluded, prompted Filipino students to leave
Santo Tomás and seek a more modern and progressive education in Spain.
A few months later, in Barcelona, an anonymous column titled “La
Universidad de Manila: Su Plan Estudios” appeared in the 15 April 1889 1889
issue of La Solidaridad, the fortnightly organ of the Propaganda Movement. reports
Written serially in three parts, the column was an elaborate critique of the from soli
state of higher education (enseñanza superior) at the UST. Assailing the
university, the column regarded its state as “an evil that calls urgently for
radical corrective measures” (La Solidaridad 1996a, 97). A continuation
of the article was printed in the periodical’s succeeding issue, and a third
installment, titled “La Universidad de Manila: Su Plan de Enseñanza,”
appeared in the 31 May issue (La Solidaridad 1996c). Writing from Paris on
20 May 1889, José Rizal (2011a, 333–34) asked Marcelo del Pilar about the
author behind the columns: “It is a pity that the continuation of the article on
education in the Philippines was not published. Who wrote it? Please extend
to him my sincere felicitations and admiration.” Four days later, Del Pilar
replied that the articles were written by José María Panganiban, whose nom
de plume was Jomapa, a native of Camarines Norte and a former capista (a
resident and grant-in-aid student) at Santo Tomás. “There is no one better
qualified than he is to deal with the subject” (Del Pilar 2006, 121–23; Rizal
2011a, 340–41).
222 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

Previous Studies on Panganiban
Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” and the liberal campaign for
educational reforms at the UST are significant aspects of the Propaganda
Movement that have scarcely received attention in Philippine historiography.
Although several book chapters, journal articles, and monographs have
made references to Panganiban’s writings, there is a dearth of studies that
comprehensively examine these columns and locate them within the
UST and the Propaganda Movement. Panganiban’s biographers (Manuel
and Manuel 1955; Abella 1958; Serrano 1963; Zaide 1970; Plagata 1974;
Agoncillo 1998; Alfonso 2016)—most of them nationalist historians—
underscored his family and educational background and his sojourn in
Barcelona; they identified his writings but did not analyze them. Most of
these accounts were in agreement that Panganiban, whom they lavishly
extolled, experienced racial discrimination during his years of study at Santo
Tomás, which they portrayed as antiquated. Domingo Abella’s (1958) article
in the Journal of History, for instance, which was first published in view of the gap in lit
repatriation of Panganiban’s remains, portrayed the Propagandist as an indio
(native) intellectual, who nevertheless transcended the racial discrimination
that pervaded his time as evidenced by his scholastic achievements at Santo
Tomás. For Abella, Panganiban was a patriot whose love of country moved
him to join the Propaganda Movement. Likewise, Gregorio Zaide (1970)
lauded Panganiban as one of the “great Filipinos in Philippine history,”
while Teodoro Agoncillo (1998) saw him as a figure deserving his place in
the nation’s pantheon of heroes. These accounts were more celebratory—
and at times hagiographic—rather than contextual and critical.
Studies on the Propaganda Movement by the Jesuit historian John
Schumacher (1975, 1991, 1997) significantly advanced the conversation
on Panganiban, the “La Universidad de Manila” columns, and the liberal
campaign for higher education reforms in the Philippines. In the seminal
The Propaganda Movement, 1880–1895, Schumacher (1997) detailed
Panganiban’s involvement in La Solidaridad, both the association and the
periodical, and his participation in the masonic lodge Revolución. He
also discussed, albeit briefly, Panganiban’s columns, which he described
as a “carefully worked out, hostile critique of the University, attacking its criticisms
inadequate facilities, antiquated methods, and unprogressive system of
education” (ibid., 138). Although Schumacher’s work underscored the
Propagandists’ anticlerical and assimilationist campaigns, it also provided
RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 223

substantial information on the campaign for reforms at Santo Tomás.
He documented events surrounding Panganiban and the Propagandist’s
columns, such as the founding of the Asociación Hispano–Filipina; the
political activities of Filipino expatriates and their Spanish allies in Barcelona
and Madrid; and the educational plans and policies of Manuel Becerra, the
liberal minister of overseas colonies. These details provided the necessary
context of Panganiban’s political thought and writings.
Schumacher’s detailed account of Panganiban’s “La Universidad de
Manila” columns was presented in his essay “Philippine Higher Education
and the Origins of Nationalism,” published first in Philippine Studies
(Schumacher 1975) and later as a chapter in The Making of a Nation
(Schumacher 1991). Schumacher (1975, 53; 1991, 35) lauded Panganiban’s
columns as the “most systematic critique of higher education in the
Philippines.” At the same time, he questioned the validity of its criticism of
questioning
Santo Tomás, given that the late nineteenth century saw extensive reforms
validity
at Santo Tomás, such as the expansion of its curricula, the creation of
new faculties, and the development of its faculty members and facilities.
Schumacher (1975, 54; 1991, 36) argued that “one cannot take these articles
in a newspaper whose principal aim was to counteract the influence of the
friars in Philippine life, as impartial and objective analyses of the state of
higher education in late 19th century Philippines.” Inevitably going against
what fellow Jesuit historian José Arcilla (1985, 546) referred to as the “black
legend” on the UST perpetrated by nationalist historians, Schumacher (1975,
56; 1991, 37) asserted that the nationalist consciousness of the reformists and
the “Propaganda Movement, which was its catalyst, came into being chiefly
as the fruit of Philippine institutions of higher education.” He contended nationalism as
that such nationalist consciousness was not the result of the Filipino students’ local product
exposure to liberal ideas in Europe and that the supposed orthodoxy at the
UST, which the young Filipino students complained about, nourished their
consciousness of a national identity. In support of his argument, which, in
my view, is the essay’s limitation, Schumacher cited the well-documented
student lives of José Rizal at the Ateneo Municipal from 1872 to 1877 and gap of
José Burgos’s years of study at Santo Tomás from 1852 to 1871, but without schumacher
examining in detail Panganiban’s columns against his student years at Santo
Tomás from 1882 to 1888.
The work of Dominican historian Fidel Villarroel (2012, 2020) on the
history of the UST fills the gaps in Schumacher’s essay. In Jose Rizal and the
224 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

University of Santo Tomas, Villarroel (2020) examines Panganiban’s columns
and elucidates its main points and themes of criticism. He opines that
several aspects of the university, such as the lack of academic freedom, the
syllogistic methods of Thomistic pedagogy, and how friar-professors handled
all kinds of subjects, came under Panganiban’s scrutiny. Although Villarroel
(ibid., 222) acknowledges that Panganiban’s criticisms were not entirely
inaccurate, he argues that it was presumptuous of Panganiban “to demand
from the University the same degree of progress, the same prepared teaching
personnel, and the same academic facilities that European universities could
afford.” Villarroel also posits a continuity between Segismundo Moret’s
decree, which planned to expel the Dominicans and secularize Santo Tomás
gap filled
in 1870,2 and Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila,” Miguel Morayta’s
by
initiatives, and Becerra’s proposed reform policies in higher education in the villaroel
late 1880s.
Another salient contribution by Villarroel is how he situates these
columns in Panganiban’s student life at Santo Tomás and in the Propaganda
Movement in Spain. He challenges the misconceptions of nationalist
historians, most especially their claim that Panganiban experienced
discrimination at Santo Tomás. He examines Panganiban’s columns against
the rationalist and secular tenets of radical liberalism, which pervaded, if not
divided, Spain in the late nineteenth century. Villarroel (ibid., 221) claims
that the influence of Spanish Masons Miguel Morayta and Manuel Becerra
caused Panganiban to change “many of his ideas and tastes as evidenced by
the said articles, which placed his Alma Mater in a very unfavorable light.”
Contrary to Schumacher’s argument, Villarroel opines that Panganiban’s
columns were a result of his exposure to liberal ideas in Spain rather than his gap of
years of study at Santo Tomás. The limitation of Villarroel’s (ibid., xxii) work, villaroel
however, lies in the institutional partisanship and apologetics that suffuse his
writings—shortcomings he admits in his book’s introduction.
In view of the existing historiography, I reexamine the “La Universidad
de Manila” columns and elaborate on the five salient points of criticism
Panganiban forwarded on the state of higher education at Santo Tomás,
namely: (a) the religious orthodoxy of the Dominicans and the consequent
lack of academic freedom, (b) the system of filling professorial chairs done
without examinations, (c) the faculty and how they were teaching too many
courses, (d) the Thomistic pedagogical paradigm, and (e) the lack of facilities
for clinical practice. In so doing, I ask: how does Panganiban’s critique of the
research question

UST find empirical grounding in his years of study in Manila? With the aid
of pertinent sources from the Archivo de la Universidad de Santo Tomás
(AUST), I argue that the “La Universidad de Manila,” although born out of
propaganda, was Panganiban’s forthright assessment of the university based
on his lived experience as a student there from 1882 to 1888. These columns, 2 main
as I show in this article, therefore reflect the university’s state of higher arguments
education in the late nineteenth century. Lastly, I situate these columns in
the Propaganda Movement and argue that these columns formed part of a
wider, liberal campaign for reforms in Philippine higher education pursued
in Spain between 1888 and 1891.
Panganiban at the Universidad de Santo Tomás

Born on 1 February 1863 in Mambulao, Camarines Norte, to parents
of Tagalog descent, José María Panganiban y Enverga first came to the
Universidad de Santo Tomás in 1882 as a transfer student from the Vincentian-
run Seminario Conciliar de Nueva Caceres (Real y Pontificia UST 1882–
1883; Panganiban 1883; Dela Goza and Cavanna 1985).3 After receiving his
bachiller en artes (Bachelor of Arts) in 1883 he was admitted to the Faculty of
Medicine, which was then housed at the Colegio de San José on Calle Anda
in Intramuros, and enrolled for the Ampliación, the preparatory courses
leading to a licentiate in medicine, for which he obtained sobresaliente
(outstanding) in all three courses (Real y Pontificia UST 1871–1889). The
Dominican fathers recognized Panganiban’s scholastic merit, allowing him
to proceed to medicine proper both as an interino (a boarding student) and a
capista—who did not have to pay tuition and miscellaneous fees but rendered
services in the university chapel, study halls, and library. Villarroel (2020,
223) observed that “Panganiban’s name appears in the enrollment books with
a note: ‘By disposition of the Father Rector, his tuition and lodging fees are
paid by the College.’” Although his family could not afford to finance his
education in Manila, he was able to pursue his studies because his excellent
performance in the Ampliación merited him a scholarship.
Throughout his years of study at the Faculty of Medicine, there was
“no student in his class who equaled him” (ibid.). Except for the courses he
took in his first year of medicine proper with Dr. Rafael Ginard, Panganiban
obtained sobresaliente in all his classes. In March 1887, during his third
year, he received an award for his outstanding papers in General Pathology,
Therapeutics, and Surgical Anatomy, besting his classmate Bartolome
226 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

Alas in a three-day examination (Panganiban 1887; Real y Pontificia UST
1871–1889, 1887a). Drs. Casto López Brea, Luis Oms, and Antonio Trelles
recommended to Fr. Echeverria that Panganiban’s papers be compiled and
published by the university. Titled Memorias, the publication was exhibited
at the Philippine Exposition of Madrid in 1887 (Ponce 1996a, 443).4 This
accomplishment was unprecedented “for never before had essays written
by students been printed by and on behalf of the University” (Villarroel
2020, 223). These pieces of historical evidence undermine the argument
of nationalist historians (Abella 1958; Zaide 1970; Agoncillo 1998) for they
suggest that Panganiban could not have been treated unfairly, let alone
racially discriminated, by his professors and the Dominican fathers during
his years at the UST.
The Propaganda Movement in Barcelona

Despite the accolades, Panganiban left Santo Tomás in his fourth year of
medicine proper (Real y Pontificia UST 1871–1889). He sailed for Spain to
continue his studies, arriving in Barcelona in the spring of 1888. Throughout
his first few months in the city, he developed a profound interest in politics
and journalism, having arrived in the city when the main scene of the Filipino
students’ Propaganda activities had shifted from Madrid to Barcelona. In
October 1888 several members of the Madrid colony, most notably Antonio
Luna, went to Barcelona to see the Universal Exposition taking place at the
Parc de la Ciutadella (Schumacher 1997, 130). They were to confer with
Mariano Ponce as well on the question of the editorship of a new periodical
they were planning to establish. In the same month, Morayta and Rafael
Labra, Spanish liberals who supported the Propaganda Movement, were
also in the city, and so the Barcelona colony, led by Ponce and Graciano
López Jaena, organized a banquet in honor of the two Spaniards (Rizal
2011a, 219–21). The speeches delivered in that event “extolled cooperation
between Peninsulars and Filipinos, all sons of a common Mother Spain, and
reiterated the need to extend to the Philippines the rights and liberties that
belonged to all Spaniards” (Schumacher 1997, 133). López Jaena’s speech,
which capped the banquet, underscored the need for the expulsion of the
friars from the Philippines and pledged support for Morayta’s Asociación
Hispano–Filipina. Ponce, for his part, maintained a moderate stance in
his demand for reforms, “declaring that in the Philippines, there were no
filibusteros [dissidents], only loyal sons of Spain seeking reforms” (ibid.).

In Barcelona, which was the locus of radical political movements in late–
nineteenth-century Spain, Panganiban was initiated into the Propaganda
Movement.
While Panganiban awaited the opening of classes for the academic year
1889–1890, he dedicated himself to the political campaign (Abella 1958). He
was among the founding members of a new Filipino organization in Barcelona,
the Asociación La Solidaridad, inaugurated at the New Year’s Eve banquet
on 31 December 1888. An executive board had been elected with Galicano
Apacible as president, López Jaena as vice president, Manuel Bustamante
Santa María as secretary, Ponce as treasurer, and Panganiban as auditor (Rizal
2011a, 259–60). Rizal, who at that time was already back in London from his
brief visit to Barcelona, was appointed honorary president, which he “gratefully
acknowledged” in a letter to the members of the newly formed association
(ibid., 268–69). The other members of the Barcelona group, Fernando Canon,
Santiago Ycasiano, and Marcelo del Pilar, who arrived there in January 1889,
later joined the association. By then, Schumacher (1997, 134–35) noted, Ponce
and the rest of the Barcelona colony “seemed to have despaired of resolving
the divisions which rent the colony of Madrid and decided to establish a
newspaper on their own resources.” In January 1889 the executive board began
setting up the newspaper and their editorial and business office at the Plaza
de Buensuceso in Barcelona. A few weeks later, on 15 February 1889, the
association published the maiden issue of La Solidaridad, with López Jaena
as its chief editor.
Panganiban became a regular contributor to the fortnightly periodical,
beginning with La Solidaridad’s third issue. His first article, titled
“Pensamientos,” appeared in the “Artes y Letras” (Arts and Letters) section
of the 15 March 1889 issue (Panganiban 1996a). Writing under the nom de
plume Jomapa, Panganiban explained the importance of a free press and,
conversely, advocated for the abolition of censorship in the Philippines. But
his most important contribution to the newspaper were the “La Universidad
de Manila” columns, which forwarded an elaborate and incisive critique
of the state of higher education at Santo Tomás. As previously mentioned,
Schumacher (1975, 55; 1991, 36) argued that Panganiban’s chief
complaint concerned the narrow limits imposed on university students
by the Dominicans’ religious orthodoxy or the lack of academic freedom.
By reexamining the columns, however, I show that Panganiban’s critique
extended to four other important aspects of the university.
228 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

On Dominican Orthodoxy
The first aspect Panganiban censured was the Dominicans’ religious
orthodoxy. He observed that the academic freedom of both professors and
students in the university was subject to the friars’ approval or censorship.
He cited, for example, the case of an unnamed student who was charged
with “possession of copies of Rizal’s Noli me Tangere,” an offense that was
not yet included in the school codes when the case was filed. Panganiban
opined that any scientific idea forwarded in the university, whether moral,
social, or political, were “carefully sifted through the lenses of Thomistic
doctrines” and that “all the avenues of knowledge, all the ways to progress,
all means of cultural attainment are subject to the friar’s vigilant eye” (La
Solidaridad 1996c, 179). Censored was any book or liberal idea critical of
the philosophies of Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, any
of the “eternal truths” preached by the Catholic Church or the scholastic
tradition the Dominican fathers espoused.
On 30 August 1887, in Panganiban’s fourth year at the Faculty of
Medicine, a special committee composed of three Dominican professors,
Evaristo Arias, Norberto del Prado, and Matías Gómez, censored the
Noli. Appointed by Echeverria, the committee found the novel “heretical,
impious, and scandalous in the religious aspect; and antipatriotic, subversive
of the public order, injurious to the Spanish Government and its policies in
the political aspect,” arguing that “the whole narrative goes against Catholic
dogma, against the Church, against the Religious Orders, against the civil,
military, social and political institutions” (Villarroel 2020, 168). Given the
power of censorship vested upon the Dominican fathers of Santo Tomás,
Panganiban facetiously compared them with the “immovable Sphinx
menacingly surveilling at the tip of Mariveles” (La Solidaridad 1996c,
179), an ingenious allusion to the mythical creature in Sophocles’s tragedy
Oedipus Rex and a reference to Mariveles, the town at the tip of the Bataan
Peninsula overlooking Manila Bay. Just as the Sphinx guarded Thebes from
any traveler who wished to enter the city by asking a riddle, the Dominicans,
especially after copies of the Noli had been distributed in the Philippines in
1887, maintained a vigilant eye and scrutinized any liberal idea threatening
to permeate not only the university but also Manila. Like the Sphinx,
which devoured the travelers who were unable to answer the riddle, the
Dominicans, for Panganiban, censored texts that did not conform to their

Thomistic standards and penalized anyone who possessed them. Students
found this atmosphere asphyxiating (La Solidaridad 1996g, 583).
In contrast, Panganiban and other Filipino students encountered
a secular and therefore liberal and scientific ethos at the University of
Barcelona, which, like Santo Tomás, was “royal” in character, hence
a Spanish state university. The University of Barcelona, however, was
administered exclusively by laymen consisting of professors with licentiates
and doctorates across secular disciplines, whereas Santo Tomás was directed
by the religious—i.e., the Dominicans—who were mostly professors of
theology and canon law. During Panganiban’s time in Barcelona, the rector
was Dr. Julian Casaña Leonardo, a pharmacist and professor of chemistry,
while Santo Tomás was led by Father Echeverria, a theologian and canon
law professor. Barcelona, moreover, had only the secular faculties of
Philosophy and Letters, Sciences, Law, Pharmacy, and Medicine, whereas
UST had the Faculty of Theology and Canon Law for its flagship program,
along with Civil Law and Medicine and Pharmacy, but did not have a faculty
of sciences, philosophy, and letters. Furthermore, the Ampliación courses in
Barcelona’s Faculty of Medicine were taught exclusively by professors from
the Faculty of Sciences. Unlike Santo Tomás, where Panganiban attended
Advanced Physics and Natural History classes with Frs. Genaro Buitrago and
Casto de Elera (Real y Pontificia UST 1871–1889), no friar-professors taught
the Ampliación in Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona 1889, 115). As I
show in the succeeding section, the addition of the Faculties of Sciences,
Philosophy, and Letters; the abolition of the Faculty of Theology and Canon
Law at Santo Tomás; and, consequently, the secularization of the university
were among the reforms proposed by the Morayta-led Asociación Hispano–
Filipina in Madrid and later by the Asociación La Solidaridad in Barcelona.
Panganiban, having encountered a secular atmosphere in Barcelona,
appealed that science at Santo Tomás ought to emancipate itself from the
dogmatism of theology and canon law (La Solidaridad 1996a, 97). For the
Dominicans, however, these movements for higher education reforms in
Spain were specters of an earlier, aborted move for the secularization of
Santo Tomás.
On the Appointment of Professors

The second aspect of the university that came under Panganiban’s scrutiny
was the method of filling professorial chairs by way of nominations without
230 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

competitive examinations. He observed that the UST rector nominated to the
governor general candidates who would fill vacated professorships, arguing
that the role or intervention of the royal vice patron had been reduced to
merely “approving the appointment of a candidate named by the rector”
(ibid.). The appointments of Salvador Narranjo and Luis Oms in 1883 and
1885, respectively, were illustrative examples.
In a letter to the Ministerio de Ultramar dated 28 June 1883, Gov.
Gen. Joaquín Jovellar (1883) informed Overseas Minister Fernando León
Castillo that Jovellar had accepted the proposal of Father Echeverria and,
with the concurrence of the university claustro,5 had appointed Salvador
Narranjo to take over the professorial post vacated by Miguel Pina. Without
any competitive examinations, Narranjo was appointed to teach General
Pathology and Pathologic Histology, courses Panganiban took in his third year
in 1886–1887 and which Narranjo taught until 1889 (Real y Pontificia UST
1871–1889; Luna 2008, 210). On 3 June 1885 Gov. Gen. Emilio Terrero
(1885) likewise informed Overseas Minister Manuel Aguirre de Tejada
that, “by virtue of the recommendation of the Reverend Father Rector,”
he appointed Luis Oms professor of Obstetrics and Women’s Sicknesses.
From these examples, we see that the rector named the candidate to the
vacant professorial post and submitted it to the governor general, who in turn
approved the proposal and later informed the minister of overseas colonies
about it. Panganiban decried this system, particularly how the governor
general conceded to the university rector his power to fill vacated posts.
Panganiban argued that the problem in filling vacant professorial
chairs by nomination lay in how such practice lent itself to favoritism.
He suggested that these professorships were not necessarily given to the
most competent and qualified candidates, but to those who were favored
most by the Dominican fathers. “It would not be incautious to assume,”
Panganiban wrote, “that favoritism might be the means with which many
rise to the heights of the professorial chair” (La Solidaridad 1996a, 99).
In a subsequent article published on 31 January 1891, La Solidaridad
(1996i, 33) backed Panganiban’s claim, contending that “such a system of
competitive examinations is not practiced in the Philippines. . . . Influence,
connections—these are the great qualities, the conditions that win the proud
titles of wisdom for those who aspire to be professors of the University of
Manila.” For Panganiban, these candidates named by the rector and by the
civil government served as agents in maintaining the religious orthodoxy

exercised by the Dominicans and could not have taught ideas in a scientific
manner, thereby ensuring that academic freedom was curtailed. This
sentiment could well have been part of Panganiban’s antifriar polemic. But
what is interesting to note, as may be gleaned from the account of Renate
Simpson (1980, 39), is how the report of the First Philippine Commission
in 1900 corroborated Panganiban’s claims on the personalistic system of
appointing professors at the UST. Simpson paraphrased the report as follows:
“While secular and lay candidates had to be properly qualified and undergo
competitive examinations, a strong recommendation from someone in high
authority, the governor or archbishop or an intimate friend of a friar could
gain one a chair” (ibid).
Panganiban forwarded this critique after having encountered in
Barcelona a stark contrast to Santo Tomás’s system of appointing professors.
Whereas the Dominicans simply recommended to the governor general a
candidate for a post, by the 1880s the appointment of professors in “royal”
universities in Spain rested solely in the hands of the state and thus was
free from intervention by any religious order. Beginning in 1889, the
Spanish government, through Queen Regent María Christina and Minister
of Development José Álvarez de Toledo, who concurrently served as
director general for public instruction, announced vacant posts and called
for applications through the Gaceta de Instrucción Pública, which first
circulated on 1 February 1889.6 After the applications closed, the Gaceta
officially announced the names of the candidates; the tribunal whose chair
and members were university professors; the competitive examinations of
the candidates before the tribunal; as well as the successful candidate named
to the professorial post (Gaceta de Instrucción Pública 1889a).7 Not only was
the system of appointing professors in the Peninsula a rigorous process, but
it was also transparent. However, at Santo Tomás La Solidaridad (1996i, 33)
noted that “not one of those who teach from the august chair of the professor
has demonstrated the ability to a competent body by passing competitive
examinations.” All thirty-three professors in the secular faculties at Santo
Tomás were appointed by nomination.
In place of nominations, Panganiban proposed that Santo Tomás adopt
the competitive examinations followed in royal universities in Spain, for
this system would ensure a selection process that evaluated the merits of
the candidates rather than considered merely whether they were of good
character or were popular among the Dominicans. Writing in 1891, two
232 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

years after the publication of Panganiban’s columns, the editorial staff of La
Solidaridad (ibid.) chimed in on the matter, concurring with Panganiban
thus: “The professor should have profound knowledge, for such a delicate
and honorable office should be given based on individual worth and
achievement.” A “capable mind” and the “necessary knowledge” ought to
entitle a candidate to a professorial post in the university. Like Panganiban,
they believed that competitive examinations would ensure a fair and rigorous
process in filling vacant professorial chairs in Santo Tomás.
On Academic Instruction
The third aspect was the faculty and how they were teaching several courses
at a time. Panganiban observed that the UST employed what he referred
to as a “method of economy” in filling professorial positions, which then
resulted in “the lack of professors for the essential courses which form the
curriculum of a degree” (La Solidaridad 1996b, 123). He denounced how in
the Faculty of Medicine the number of faculty members was significantly less
than the number of courses offered. Panganiban pointed out, for instance,
that only one professor taught histology, general anatomy, and its laboratory
work: Rafael Ginard. In his fourteen years of teaching at the Faculty of
Medicine, Ginard had always handled all first-year courses at the Faculty of
Medicine from its inception in 1871 until his untimely demise in 1885 (Real
y Pontificia UST 1871–1889; Luna 2008, 176, 209).
Panganiban also pointed out that there was only one professor for
the following cluster of courses: (a) physiology, hygiene, and sanitation;
(b) general pathology, clinical pathology, and pathologic histology; (c)
obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics; and (d) legal medicine, toxicology,
dermatology, and its laboratory work (La Solidaridad 1996a, 99). In the
first cluster mentioned, Panganiban referred to Carlos Nalda, who was
his professor in physiology, sanitation, and private and public hygiene in
1885–1886. Nalda held the post for seventeen years from 1876 to 1893. The
second cluster of courses comprised of third-year courses that Panganiban
took under Salvador Narranjo, who held the post for six years from 1883 to
1889. Courses in the third cluster were taken in the fourth and fifth year and
were taught by Mariano Cuadrado from 1881 to 1885 and by Felix Bueno
Chicoy from 1885 to 1889. Panganiban took the Introduction to Obstetrics
and Gynecology with Chicoy but did not complete the course as he had
withdrawn from the program by 1888. Finally, the last cluster of courses was

for sixth-year students. Although Panganiban no longer reached this level
in his medical studies at Santo Tomás, he correctly identified this cluster as
taught by one professor, José de Irastorza, from 1885 to 1891.
At the University of Barcelona, Panganiban noted that the Faculty of
Medicine there had more personnel than Santo Tomás. In 1888–1889, for
instance, the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona had thirty individuals in their
roster—seventeen professors, including the dean, Dr. Juan de Rull Xuriach;
three clinical instructors; three assistants for practical and experimental
classes; two museum directors; one instrumentalist; one assistant; one
anatomical sculptor; and one professor for practicantes (trainees or interns)
and matronas (midwives) (Universitat de Barcelona 1889, 115–16). At
Santo Tomás, from 1887 to 1891, the Faculty of Medicine only had fifteen
professors—three of whom were friars—who taught all twenty-four courses
(La Solidaridad 1996i, 35; Real y Pontificia UST 1887b, 1888, 1889, 1890;
Luna 2008, 210–11).
Moreover, no professor in Barcelona taught more than two classes. In
fact, only five professors—Santiago Ramón Cajal, Jaime Farreras Framis,
Rafael Rodríguez Méndez, Juan Giné Partagás, and Nicholas Hans
Pascuets—were assigned to teach two classes in 1888–1889 (Universitat de
Barcelona 1889, 115–16). The dean, Dr. Xuriach, handled only one class
as opposed to Dr. Ginard, who taught all three first-year classes at Santo
Tomás. Barcelona, furthermore, had clinical instructors and assistants for
practical and experimental classes, posts that at Santo Tomás were filled by
the professor who taught the course’s lecture class. Lastly, they had separate
professors who taught the courses for interns and midwives, whereas at Santo
Tomás the latter were simply merged into the classes of medicine students.
For Panganiban, the “method of economy” at Santo Tomás reflected
how the Dominicans privileged the Faculties of Theology and Canon Law,
with the secular Faculty of Medicine relegated to secondary importance. In
Santo Tomás no friar-professor taught more than one course from 1885 to
1888, but faculty professors such as Ginard, Nalda, and Narranjo had three
or more courses to teach (Real y Pontificia UST 1871–1889). Panganiban
also noted that professors who taught multiple classes oftentimes condensed
them into an hour’s worth of lecture: “It is not to be thought that these
courses, no matter how important they are, are taught separately. Except for
descriptive anatomy, all the others are taught an hour a day in a single course”
(La Solidaridad 1996a, 99). The Faculty of Medicine also lacked professors
who were qualified to teach specialization courses. As a result, Panganiban
234 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

suggested, the quality of teaching in the secular faculties suffered. Many
students passed these courses or even obtained their licentiate from the
faculty without fully learning the necessary competencies for such courses.
On the Thomistic Pedagogical Paradigm

The fourth aspect Panganiban criticized was the pedagogical paradigm
that the Faculty of Medicine adopted. Despite the empirical nature of the
medical sciences, he remarked, “practice is the phase that is least attended
to” (ibid.). In Narranjo’s General and Clinical Pathology classes, for example,
Panganiban recalled that there was no laboratory work or clinical practice
to supplement the theories and concepts taught in class.8 Students passed
the said courses without adequate knowledge of “how to use instruments for
diagnosis” and “without practice in the recognition of blood composition”
(ibid.).
In the 30 April 1889 column, Panganiban also cited his encounters in
López Brea’s class on Surgical Anatomy, which was taught in a peculiar way:
The manner in which major and minor surgery is taught by the

professor of physical anatomy (3rd year) is very odd. On the day when
a major operation is to be made, the students of the third year must
be present to watch the operation, but as spectators only of the ability
or lack of ability of the surgeon. Nothing is said to them of whatever
method is used, or of what procedure is being followed, nor of the data
that they should know when they attend the operation. It is just like
watching a machine manipulated and put to work showing absolutely
nothing of its mechanism. (La Solidaridad 1996b, 123)
Panganiban explained that the absence of clinical practice in Brea’s class

was due in part to the absence of a university-owned hospital. The Faculty
of Medicine at that time held some classes at the San Juan de Dios (fig.
1), a civil hospital in Manila, which the Daughters of Charity administered
beginning in 1862 (Bantug 1952, 78). He wrote that, since the Faculty of
Medicine had to borrow facilities from the hospital, the university had to
“beg the administration of the civil hospital of Manila for some of the wards
for clinical practice,” and obtaining cadavers for dissection always came with
difficulty as it was always subject to the approval of the Mother Superior (La
Solidaridad 1996b, 123).

Fig. 1. The San Juan de Dios Hospital and Calle Real in Manila, 1896. Courtesy of the Special
Collections Research Center, University of Michigan.
Source: Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan 1896
Another point Panganiban raised in his critique of the Faculty of

Medicine’s pedagogy was the privileging of syllogism—a pedagogical
paradigm characteristic of medieval universities in Europe. He deplored
the Dominicans’ “attachment to the dialectics of scholasticism, the major
theses, the vagueness of theology, canon law and jurisprudence, and the
weekly conferences, examinations, which give preference to syllogism”
(ibid., 125).9 He asserted that “time is wasted in empty words, in forming
syllogisms that are more or less false”; as such, “[t]ime is taken away from
more useful studies,” and the end result is that “no one ever arrives at a
solution of the main problem, because the questions are engulfed in a
labyrinth of intermediate premises” (ibid.).
Moreover, he censured the Scholastic method of instruction of lectio
and disputatio and likewise argued for its unsuitability in teaching the
medical sciences. In the 30 April 1889 “La Universidad de Manila” column,
he quipped that it was common to encounter a professor at Santo Tomás
236 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

who would “deliver or explain his lecture by reading verbatim from the text”
(ibid., 123). Here, Panganiban referred to the lectio or the unquestioned
reading or exposition of an authoritative text. After the professor’s lecture,
students were given time to ask questions or raise objections to the text, the
disputatio, when students brought up queries and contentions against the text
and the professor responded in accordance with the text until the discussion
arrived at a resolution. Despite students’ objections, the authoritative text
still prevailed and was accepted and held true. In their method of instruction,
professors used the Scholastic model, which Panganiban deemed to be
not only antiquated but also unscientific. This paradigm therefore was
inappropriate in teaching the medical courses, for the sciences ought to be
taught empirically with the aid of experiments and the benefit of clinical
practice, not just by granting or denying the truth of the premises. Instead of
delving into the abstract, speculative, and deductive, Panganiban appealed
for a more scientific pedagogical paradigm in the Baconian sense—i.e., a
paradigm grounded in observation, induction, and practice.
On the Lack of Facilities for Clinical Practice

Finally, the last facet Panganiban criticized was the university’s lack of
facilities. Although the UST boasted of its large library, which had 12,000
volumes; its Museum of Natural History, which contained more than
5,000 specimens; and its Gabinete de Física, which contained around 300
instruments, including new inventions (Sanchez 1929, 175), his chief
complaint was the absence of a university-owned hospital or even just a
small laboratory for clinical practice. As mentioned earlier, some classes like
Surgical Anatomy held their meetings at the San Juan de Dios Hospital.
In this light, Panganiban argued that the medical training students
received at Santo Tomás, particularly in Pathological Physiology and Histology,
among other courses whose classes were held at the hospital, was incomplete
(La Solidaridad 1996b, 123). Students visited only two clinics—the medical
and surgical clinics—for one hour a day. This manner of instruction was
compounded by the lack of emphasis on medical practice, which for
Panganiban was more important than the usual lectures. As a result, students
passed these courses without learning the necessary competencies and skills.
For Panganiban, the consequences of this improper medical training
were dire. On the one hand, the university could not produce skillful and
competent doctors and pharmacists. The ineptitude of these professionals

then resulted in medical malpractice and gross negligence. On the other
hand, Spanish apologists co-opted and conveniently attributed these instances
of incompetence and medical malpractice to the intellectual backwardness
in the sciences inherent among the natives. In fact, they owed to the
insufficient medical training they received from the ill-equipped Faculties
of Medicine and Pharmacy at Santo Tomás. Hence, “La Universidad de
Manila” was a platform for Panganiban not only to articulate his criticism
of the university, but also to assert that native doctors could be as competent
as—or even surpass—their Spanish counterparts. From there he asserted
that natives were deserving of equal rights and political representation in the
legislative chambers of Madrid.
A Wider Campaign for Reforms in Higher Education

Panganiban’s campaign for reforms in higher education owed its origins to
the political scene in Madrid from mid-1888 to early 1889. The initiative
seemed to have come from Miguel Morayta, a professor of history at the
Universidad Central de Madrid, and Rafael Labra, who organized in June
1888 the Asociación Hispano–Filipina, which called for the secularization
of Santo Tomás as part of its main political agenda (Schumacher 1997, 183;
Ponce and De Veyra 1998, 78).
Writing from Madrid on 22 November 1888, Bougarde (1888, 274)
warned Echeverria that “a group of Filipino filibusteros held frequent
meetings in the houses of Morayta, Labra, a certain Corominas, and the
Filipino painter Luna.”10 These men were reported to have collaborated with
Cuban autonomists and prominent Spanish liberals, most notably the poet-
turned-politician Gaspar Nuñez de Arce, who served briefly as minister of
overseas colonies in 1883. One item in their agenda, according to Bougarde
(ibid.), was the “inferiority and the disorganization of the University of
Manila.” In a separate account by Dominican Juan Sanchez (1929, 118),
these men who initiated the Asociación Hispano–Filipina lobbied the
Ministry of Overseas Colonies that the Faculties of Theology and Canon
Law, useless and antiquated as they were, “be replaced by the Faculties of
Philosophy and Letters, Sciences, and Civil Law.”11
Manuel Becerra’s Initiatives

On 12 January 1889 the Asociación Hispano–Filipina was inaugurated.
On this occasion, López Jaena (1974, 327–28) sent Morayta a letter
238 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

expressing his congratulations to all its members and his “enthusiastic
adhesions” to its political agenda. Speaking on behalf of the Filipinos in
Barcelona, he pledged his “unconditional support” for the association in its
effort to combat the religious orders in the Philippines and in the campaign
for the Dominicans’ dismissal and suppression at the UST (ibid.). He also
articulated his proposed reform that the university ought to adopt: the AHP and
filling of professorial chairs through competitive examination instead of ASL
by appointment, which was solely decided upon by the UST rector. López reforms
Jaena (ibid.) wrote: “Such are the excesses, which I beg the Asociación to
submit as soon as possible to the highest consideration of our Government.”
With the coalescing of the Asociación La Solidaridad of Barcelona and
the Asociación Hispano–Filipina of Madrid, it did not take Morayta and
these associations long before they presented their proposed reforms to the
Ministry of Overseas Colonies led by Becerra.
A former deputy of the Junta Superior Revolucionaria during the
Glorious Revolution of 1868 and a staunch liberal, Manuel Becerra y
Bermúdez was appointed to head the Ministry of Overseas Colonies by
Práxedes Mateo Sagasta on 11 December 1888. Becerra’s two-year term was
a constant threat to the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Schumacher
(1997, 162) noted that some of his projects included the “separation of the
Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy from Santo Tomas, the subjection of projects
all the religious colleges of secondary education to an institute to be founded
in Manila . . . and a general reduction of the ecclesiastical budget.” These
measures were meant to “weaken the position of the religious orders in order
to secularize education” (ibid., 163).
In 1889 Becerra lobbied the Spanish parliament for a series of education
reforms in the Philippines. First, he proposed the establishment of secondary first reform
schools and schools of arts and trades in Manila and in the Visayas. This
proposal was immediately lauded by López Jaena (1974, 228), who believed
that these schools “will encourage in those Islands the study of sciences, arts,
and trades and that this will ensure that the islanders will move along the
path of progress and civilizations.” López Jaena avowed, however, that it was
imperative to exclude friars from their faculty and administration and to fill
teaching positions through competitive examinations to “render satisfactory
results.” “Otherwise, what will happen is like what is happening in the
University of Manila where free inquiry is a crime and academic freedom
is . . . a myth” (ibid.). He also used the occasion to articulate the ilustrados’

or educated elite’s campaign for Philippine representation in the Cortes,
which Panganiban and the rest of the Asociación La Solidaridad, along with
the Asociación Hispano–Filipina, jointly presented to Becerra in April 1889.
He asserted that, to ensure the ratification and implementation of Becerra’s
sweeping reforms at Santo Tomás, Philippine representation in the Cortes
was imperative, for only then would Spain recognize the Philippines as a
full-fledged Spanish province. The laws governing Spain would thereby
apply to the Philippines. In the case of education, the Moyano Law (Gaceta
de Madrid 1857), which reorganized Spanish educational institutions from
primera (primary) to superior enseñanza (higher education), would have
applied to the Philippines and superseded the royal decree of 29 October
1875, which repealed the 1870 Moret decree and governed Santo Tomás at
that time.12
Second, Becerra presented to the Chamber of Deputies in around June
1889 his fiscal plan for the Philippines, which would reduce the ecclesiastical
second
budget in favor of public education, particularly teacher’s salaries, equipment,
reform
and others. La Patria, the organ of friars in the Philippines, immediately
condemned the proposed budget. As La Solidaridad (1996d, 249) reported,
La Patria’s 27 June 1889 issue criticized Becerra’s proposal and described
it as a “detestable fiscal plan detrimental to the interests of the Church.”
In its 15 July 1889 issue, La Solidaridad (ibid.) reported that Becerra
appropriated ₱915,132 to the religious orders in the Philippines, which,
despite the diminution it had received, was still ₱568,627 more than the
public education’s meager budget of ₱346,505. Church personnel received
the bulk of the appropriations as theirs exceeded the total budget for public
education by more than ₱300,000. Given these figures, La Solidaridad
(ibid., 253) asserted that the friars had nothing to complain about because,
despite the budget cut Becerra had proposed for the religious orders, the
budget for public education was still far smaller than what was appropriated
to the former.
Lastly, as La Solidaridad (1996e, 545) reported in its 31 December
1889 issue, Becerra petitioned the Dominican order for a part of the Spanish
third
state’s rights in Philippine higher education. His main proposal was limited
to amending the system of filling vacant professorial posts in its secular
Faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Civil Law. He sought the abolition
of the university’s practice of nominations in appointing professors, usually
done by the university’s Dominican rector. Just as Panganiban had advocated
240 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

in April and May 1889, Becerra proposed a system based on competitive
examinations, but to no avail. The Dominicans were simply not amenable to
increased state intervention in the administration of the university.
The Campaign for Reforms Flounders

At the root of the Dominicans’ reluctance lay multiple reports from
Manila newspapers of Becerra’s intention to “secularize the University, to
deprive the Dominican Order (which, in the words of the Minister was an
antiquated institution) of the monopoly of education, to place Santo Tomas
in the hands of the state and to create a new university run by the state”
(Villarroel 2012, 176). One of those reports came from the Manila-based
El Comercio, which said in April 1889 that Becerra’s sweeping reforms of
the university were looming. His proposal was met with indignant protests
in Manila and Madrid. Some of these protests came from different Manila
papers such as Diario de Manila, El Comercio, La Oceania Española, and
La Voz de Manila (Villarroel 2020, 226). But the most prominent dissension,
according to Villarroel (ibid.), came from the university rector and the
director of civil administration, Justo Tomás Delgado, who sent Sagasta an
“influential” telegram cautioning the prime minister that Becerra’s reforms
were “unpolitical and highly damaging to the Philippines.”
Del Pilar (1996a, 429) deplored these responses, referring to them as
the “reactionary intolerance” that impeded the passage of Becerra’s proposed
reforms at Santo Tomás, which were aimed at improving and strengthening
education in the Philippines. “Higher education in the Philippines,” he
wrote, “has not reached the height of perfection to sustain unashamedly the responses
idea that it cannot be improved” (ibid.). Due to these objections, Sagasta,
who did not exactly veto Becerra’s proposals, deferred their approval and
referred them to the Council of State, where unfortunately it did not go any
further (La Solidaridad 1996e, 547).
As far as the Propaganda Movement was concerned, the campaign
for reforms at Santo Tomás in La Solidaridad was interrupted. López
Jaena became more preoccupied with political circles in Barcelona, grew
disheartened with the periodical, and left, relinquishing the editorship to
Del Pilar, who then led the newspaper’s move to Madrid in the fall of 1889. UST
Panganiban, for his part, grew ill (Rizal 2011a, 355–57) and was unable reforms
to continue writing the “La Universidad de Manila” columns; he had interrupte
been absent from the periodical from June 1889 until July 1890, when he d

Fig. 2. Front page of La Solidaridad’s
commemorative issue for
Panganiban, 30 Sept. 1890.
Courtesy of the Del Pilar Museum,

National Historical Commission of
the Philippines.
242 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

published his last political article, “Los nuevos ayuntamientos” (Panganiban
1996b).
By 1890 Panganiban had been distracted by his dalliances. An
apprehensive Ponce related to Rizal (2011a, 476) that Panganiban had been
having an affair with a married Spanish woman and that he “committed
a very serious error of giving the woman papers pertaining to his studies
and an indiscreet letter,” which the husband soon found in his wife’s
keeping. Panganiban went into hiding at Canon’s house at San Gervacio
until one Saturday evening he was caught strolling at the Plaza de Cataluña
by the husband and another man, who then gave Panganiban a “vicious
beating” (Reyes 2009, xvii). Panganiban defended himself with all his might
notwithstanding his frail constitution, but “a blow to the head sent him
bloodied to the ground” (Rizal 2011a, 476). A few weeks after the incident,
on 19 August 1890, Panganiban died, succumbing to pulmonary tuberculosis
at the young age of 27 (La Solidaridad 1996f, 401; Ponce 1996a, 443). To
honor his memory, the editorial staff of La Solidaridad dedicated a special
issue to Panganiban (fig. 2), where an obituary and the eulogies penned by
Rizal, López Jaena, and the other reformists were published.
The Conservatives’ Return to Power

Exacerbating things further was the fall of Sagasta’s government on 3 July
1890 and the Conservatives’ return to power. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo,
the chief architect of the turno pacifico or the peaceful “alternation in power
of two dynastic parties—the Liberals and the Conservatives” (Lawrence
2020, 228)—and four-term prime minister,13 succeeded Sagasta (Gaceta
de Madrid 1890, 77). Becerra was likewise gone, having been replaced by
Conservatives Antonio María Fabié and Francisco Romero Robledo, who
served from 1890 to 1891 and 1891 to 1892, respectively (ibid., 78; Gaceta
de Madrid 1892, 779). With the fall of Sagasta and Becerra, their planned
reforms for the Philippines stalled in parliamentary discussions. At that
point, the campaign for reforms in Philippine higher education reached its
denouement.
The fall of Sagasta’s government elicited various reactions from the
Propagandists. Del Pilar (1996b, 317) was uncertain of Fabié and his policies
for the Philippines, but publicly he stated that he did not “wish to listen to
the thousand criticisms, which the newspapers of Madrid heap daily on him”
and that Fabié should be judged by his actuations. Del Pilar’s ambivalent

statement clarified neither his position on Fabié nor his intentions: either he
was being diplomatic with Fabié to win the minister’s sympathy and support
for the Filipino cause or he was being watchful of what Fabié did so he
could make a later condemnation more potent should the minister not grant del pilar
them such a concession. Either way, Del Pilar knew that it was possible for
Fabié to rescind Becerra’s reforms, such as the grant of representation to the
Philippines in the Spanish Cortes, the decrease in the ecclesiastical budget
in favor of public education, and the reforms at Santo Tomás.
Rizal directed his disappointment toward the Spanish Liberal Party.
In an article titled “Una Esperanza,” he stated that the fall of Sagasta’s
government signified the end of their proposed reforms (Rizal 1996). Rizal
had grown disillusioned with the Liberals and was particularly critical of
Becerra, whom he assailed for raising the hopes of Filipinos with his many
promises, only to achieve so little in the end. Writing from Brussels, a
disgruntled Rizal (2011b, 370) confided to Ferdinand Blumentritt: “What
became of the good offices of Becerra? Don’t leave for tomorrow what can rizal
be done today! Beautiful words, beautiful words, but words, words, words,
as Shakespeare said.”14 Rizal (1996, 313) deplored the minister’s gradualism
and complacency, especially how the latter had allowed the reform to
remain unenforced in the Philippines and how he “made the power of the
religious corporations more manifest, which displayed the weakness of the
Ministry that claimed to be liberal and democratic.” He also assailed the
Conservatives, saying they hardly bothered about the Philippines in the past
and at present. “Their previous policy seemed to have been ‘it would be
worse to do something’” (ibid., 315).
With the Conservatives’ return to power, Becerra’s planned reforms for
the Philippines, including those for Santo Tomás, were eventually repealed.
In an article comparing the appropriations during the terms of Becerra
and Fabié, Del Pilar (1996c, 83) lamented that everything Becerra started
in terms of improving and funding public educational institutions in the repealed by
conservatives
Philippines had been “relegated to a beautiful dream and nothing more”
(un hermoso sueño y nada más). He condemned how Fabié’s policies were
“according to the dictates of the reverend friars” (ibid).
On 6 September 1890 Morayta, who nevertheless remained resolute,
wrote Del Pilar to express his satisfaction with how most of the Asociación
Hispano–Filipina’s proposed reforms had already been lobbied in the Cortes
and turned into legislations. But with the fall of Sagasta and Becerra, he
244 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

believed it was futile to continue lobbying for reforms, considering that the
Conservatives and their government policies were expected to empower the
religious orders in the Philippines. He suggested to Del Pilar: “Let us stop
petitioning to the government. To whom and what for should we go to if it
would only undo whatever was done by . . . Becerra?” (Morayta 1996, 415).
Morayta thought that it was prudent for the Asociación Hispano–Filipina and
the Asociación La Solidaridad to shift their approach by turning to the public
and rallying their support. “What we cannot obtain from the government,
we shall achieve from public opinion. . . . Let us resort to this with faith and
determination” (ibid.). Heeding Morayta’s advice, Del Pilar sought to renew
Panganiban’s interrupted campaign for reforms in higher education.
Reviving Panganiban’s Campaign

and Becerra’s Last Stand, 1890–1891
On 15 December 1890 La Solidaridad resumed the publication of the “La
Universidad de Manila,” eighteen months after Panganiban’s last column
appeared in the newspaper. Penned by Del Pilar, Ponce, and Luna, the new
series, which, according to Villarroel, maintained the same critical tone, had
ten articles, appearing between 15 December 1890 and 15 September 1891.
Villarroel (2020, 230) suggests that these “renewed attacks” had “nothing
added to the old litany of defects: the teaching is antiquated, . . . the professors
are not qualified, the programs and curricula are different from those in the
Peninsula.” But a closer look at the columns of the new series reveals that
the different-programs-and-curricula argument was not among the points of
criticism Panganiban had raised in his 1889 columns (see table on p. 246). new stuff
On the contrary, this argument was La Solidaridad’s recurring theme in
the new “La Universidad de Manila” series. Impelled by the case of three
transfer students from Manila—Felipe Cajucom, Enrique Magalona, and
Vicente Reyes, who were denied admission to the University of Barcelona—
the columns that comprised the new series elaborated on the salient points
of criticism Panganiban articulated in his 1889 columns as they examined in
greater detail the Faculties of Civil Law, Pharmacy, and Medicine at Santo
Tomás. The oversight on Villarroel’s part stems from how he examined only
the first two columns of the new series in Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon’s two-
volume translation of La Solidaridad published in 1973. He was therefore
unable to consult the eight other columns in the 1891 issues.15

The “La Universidad de Manila” series in La Solidaridad, 1890–1891
TITLE AUTHOR PUBLICATION DATE
The University of Manila: Its Curriculum - 15 Dec. 1890

The University of Manila: Its Curricula 31 Dec. 1890
-
(Continuation)
The University of Manila: 31 Jan. 1891
-
Its Program of Studies
The University of Manila: The College of 28 Feb. 1891
-
Law
The University of the Philippines Licentiate Naku 30 Apr. 1891
The University of Manila: 15 June 1891
SPARADRAPO
The College of Pharmacy
On the College of Medicine of Manila Doctor Naku 30 June 1891
The University of Manila Examination - 15 July 1891
The University of Manila: 31 July 1891
-
Examinations (College of Medicine)
The University of Manila: 15 Sept. 1891
T.
The Bachiller Certificate
Sources: La Solidaridad 1996g, 1996h, 1996i, 1996j, 1996k, 1996l;
Luna 1996; Ponce 1996b, 1996c, 1996d
The columns of the new series juxtaposed the programs and curricula
enforced in Manila with their counterparts in Madrid, arguing that those
in the former were discrepant from those in the latter. Anchored on this new stuff
premise, La Solidaridad called for Santo Tomás, being “Spanish” and “royal”
in character, to align itself—its programs of study, curricula, and method
of examination—with the universities in Spain. This appeal reflected the
Propagandists’ demand that the state be given administrative and supervisory
powers over the university from where the Dominican friars ought to be
expelled. As in Panganiban’s campaign, the new series was likewise a call to secularize
secularize the university.
As La Solidaridad sporadically took its campaign to the Madrid public
with the resumption of the “La Universidad de Manila” columns, the
beleaguered former minister Becerra attempted to resurrect and forward
his derailed plans for reforms in Philippine education. These plans, as
Ponce (1996b, 437) aptly put it, “lied buried in different Councils awaiting
246 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

the curiosity of some member so that they might be unearthed, or so
that some ordinance should wipe off the dust that covers them.” And so
becerra
Becerra took his campaign to the Cortes, this time as deputy of Lugo, and
reopened discussions on Philippine education. On 6 May 1891 he filed a
comprehensive bill reorganizing public education in the Philippines, which
included primary, secondary, and higher education. Becerra’s proposed
bill had forty-seven articles and was premised on how the state had little
to no intervention, aside from the subsidy it provided and, as Panganiban
had previously argued, the governor general’s approval of the Dominicans’
nominee for professorial chairs. Given the status quo, the former minister
proposed to “give the State the wise supervision it should have of all levels
and branches of public education in the Philippines, reconciling this
supervision with due respect to tradition” (Becerra 1996, 329) and without
ignoring the exceptional conditions that characterized the social situation.
After learning while in office that a too radical and anticlerical measure
was immediately met with opposition from the public, within the Cortes,
and even among fellow members of the Liberal Party, Becerra held a more
conciliatory stance that tried to balance the interests of the Dominican order
with the demands of the Asociación Hispano–Filipina and the Asociación La
Solidaridad. In article 37 of the bill, Becerra (ibid., 341) proposed that Santo
Tomás “continue, as at present, under the administration of the Dominicans;
its Vice-Regal Patron shall be administered by a Rector and a Vice-Rector,
who, like the Secretary-General, is appointed by the same Order.” He saw
secularization and the expulsion of the Dominicans as remote possibilities,
which would not gain support in the Cortes, let alone in public opinion.
Becerra, nonetheless, maintained in his proposed bill a significant
reform demanded by La Solidaridad, which Panganiban first articulated in exam
his “La Universidad de Manila” columns in 1889 and later elaborated on
by Del Pilar, Luna, and Ponce in the continuation of the series in 1890–
1891: the filling of professorial chairs by virtue of competitive examination.
Becerra proposed that the “vacancies in the professorial chairs . . . shall be
filled by the Minister of the Colonies after a competitive examination shall
have been held in Manila and in Madrid” (ibid.). This proposed measure,
however, did not apply to all faculties as it admitted a few exemptions. For
one, the Faculties of Theology and Canon Law and the Canonical Law
courses in the Faculty of Civil Law were exempted from the provision, in
recognition of the Dominicans’ prerogative to fill vacant professorships in
these faculties with candidates of their choosing.16 Another exemption was

made for temporary professors at the university. Provided that they held a
doctorate and had teaching experience for five years, they could obtain a
professorship by appointment (ibid.). The requirements, however, were too
rigid, and hardly anyone in Manila met these qualifications.
Becerra nevertheless maintained that the Spanish state, through the
Ministry of Overseas Colonies, ought to oversee the schools as well as the
religious orders that administered them, thereby subordinating the latter
under the ministry’s authority. In article 46 of the bill, Becerra proposed
to give the minister the power to “order all the rules on the organization of
curricula and of faculty in the different branches and levels of education”
(ibid.). But in a Conservative-laden parliament, Becerra’s proposed bill never
passed into law. In the last “La Universidad de Manila” column, which
appeared on 15 September 1891, Ponce (1996d, 437) mused that Becerra’s
plans “evaporated amidst political tempests” and that the proposed reforms in
Philippine education had always been “subject to the rise and fall of cabinets
and ministers. Depending on whether Cánovas or Sagasta, Fabié, Becerra, or
Balaguer, are in power, these reforms die in their embryonic stages” (ibid.).
Conclusion
Panganiban’s systematic and incisive critique of the state of the Universidad
de Santo Tomás in the late nineteenth century, which he articulated in his
“La Universidad de Manila” columns, underscored five important aspects,
namely: the religious orthodoxy of the Dominicans, the system of appointing
professors, the academic instruction, the Thomistic pedagogical paradigm,
and the lack of facilities for clinical practice. Going beyond Schumacher’s
(1991, 36) argument that the students’ chief complaint was the Dominican
orthodoxy or the lack of academic freedom, I have shown that Panganiban’s
critique extended to four other important aspects of the university.
Documentary evidence from the AUST, among other pertinent sources,
suggests that, while Panganiban assessed the UST against the backdrop of a
liberal ethos and through the categories of secular royal universities in Spain,
his critique was based empirically on his years of study in Manila. Although
born out of propaganda, Panganiban’s critique was substantiated by the
circumstances that prevailed in the university in the 1880s—a counterpoint
to Schumacher’s (1975, 54; 1991, 36) contention that the “La Universidad de
Manila” could not have been a valid and objective critique; on the contrary,
Panganiban’s columns reflected the state of higher education at the UST in
the late nineteenth century.
248 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

I also located Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” in the
Propaganda Movement, particularly in the wider liberal campaign for
reforms in higher education that took place in Madrid and Barcelona from
1888 to 1891. While I showed how he and the other Filipino Propagandists
received support from Spanish liberals like Becerra and Morayta, the
narrative I presented in this article underscored the Filipino end of the
campaign, evinced by the Propagandists’ writings in La Solidaridad and
their correspondences. An examination of the Spanish end of the campaign,
including Becerra’s educational policies during his term as minister of
overseas colonies, the dissensions of various groups over Becerra’s plans to
secularize the UST, the debates and proceedings in the Spanish parliament
on Philippine higher education in the 1880s and the 1890s, and the
responses of the UST to the specter of secularization, will certainly widen
our purview of Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” and the liberal
campaign for reforms in Philippine higher education. These are just some
of the important angles future researchers may wish to pursue. Nevertheless,
I hope this modest contribution sheds some light on an obscure figure in
Philippine history and advances the conversation on an often overlooked
aspect of the Propaganda Movement in Philippine historiography.
Abbreviations Used
AEBOE Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado, Madrid
AHN Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid
AUST Archivo de la Universidad de Santo Tomás, Manila
BNE Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid
DG-AUST Diligencias de Grados – AUST, Manila
exp. expediente
F-AUST Folletos – AUST, Manila
HD-BNE Hemeroteca Digital-BNE
leg. legajo
LMF-AUST Libro de Matriculas de Facultad, AUST, Manila
NHCP National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Manila
NHI National Historical Institute, Manila
Notes
This article is based on my MA thesis, titled “Jose Maria Panganiban’s La Universidad de Manila:
The University of Santo Tomas, The Propaganda Movement, and the Liberal Campaign for
Reforms in Philippine Higher Education, 1882–91,” which I presented before the Department
of History, Ateneo de Manila University, on 14 April 2020. I also presented an early version of
this paper in “The Philippines, Spain, and Globalization, Sixteenth Century to the Present: An

International Conference” held online by this journal on 23–24 July 2020. I would like to thank
my adviser, Francis Navarro, and my panel of readers, Michael Pante, David Lozada III, Patricia
Dacudao, and Fr. Amado Tumbali, SJ, whose critical reading of my proposal and first draft
proved invaluable in turning my thesis into a journal article. I thank AUST archivist Regalado
T. Jose and his accommodating staff, Elsie Musni, Joyce San Gabriel, and Jane Tumambing, for
their professional assistance and for orienting me to the vast collection of documents extant at
the AUST. Many thanks are also due to Alexander Aguinaldo, shrine curator of the Museo ni
Marcelo del Pilar, and Ian Christopher Alfonso of the NHCP, for the scanned copy of the 30
September 1890 issue of La Solidaridad; to Fe Susan Go of the Special Collections Research
Center, University of Michigan, for allowing me to use the photograph of the San Juan de Dios
Hospital; to Aida Hontiveros and Edna San Buenaventura of the James O’Brien, S.J. Library,
Ateneo de Naga University, for granting me unconditional access to their Bikoliana collection;
to Jorge Bundalian of the De La Salle University Libraries; and to Nicholas Sy, for his constant
advice and encouragement especially during my first few months of teaching at UP Diliman. I
also thank Norman Owen, Fr. Francis Tordilla, Victor Dennis Nierva, Luis Ruben General, Jose
Raphael Virtucio, Darren Ramon Avestruz, John Emil Alegre, and Marian Urbano Encinas for
their keen interest in this article. Lastly, I thank Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr., Angelli Tugado, and the
two anonymous readers, whose comments and suggestions have given this article its best and final
shape. Any error in fact or interpretation are my own.
1 This trend is reflected in extant documentary records at the AUST, particularly in the Libros de
Matriculas de Facultad (LMF), where the phrase se traslado a España (transferred to Spain) or
traslado a península (transferred to the Peninsula) is written in the observaciones (observations or
remarks) column of the faculty’s records. These phrases signified that the student had withdrawn
from the university either in the middle or at the end of the academic year and had transferred to
Spain or elsewhere in Europe. These students included Galicano Apacible, Manuel Santa María,
Santiago Ycasiano, José María Panganiban, and Tomás Arejola. The record excluded students
who completed the school year, passed their examinations, but did not return the following year.
The records of Mariano Ponce and Dominador Gomez, for instance, did not indicate “se traslado a
España.” They passed their examinations, completed the academic years 1885–1886 and 1886–
1887, respectively, but did not enroll the next year, having transferred to Barcelona and Madrid. Cf.
Real y Pontificia UST 1871–1889, 1871–1882.
2 Issued on 6 Nov. 1870, the Moret Decree secularized the segunda enseñanza (secondary
education) and enseñanza superior (higher education) in Manila, by which the Spanish state,
led by Francisco Serrano, took full control and administration of Santo Tomás, Letran (from the
Dominicans), and the Ateneo Municipal (from the Jesuits). The decree, named after Minister of
Overseas Colonies Segismundo Moret, collapsed the segunda enseñanza of the three schools
mentioned into a single institution called the Instituto Filipino, while the Universidad de Santo
Tomás was renamed Universidad de Filipinas. Moreover, the Moret Decree established Santo
Tomás’s Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy in 1871. See Moret 1871, 37. A copy of the decree is
also extant in F-AUST, Tomo 52; cf. Mojares 2006, 441–43; Villarroel 1988, 95.
3 José María Panganiban (1883) was the eldest of three children of Don Vicente Fernanda
Panganiban, a native of Hagonoy, Bulacan, and Juana Candelaria Enverga, a native of Mauban,
Tayabas.
250 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

4 The complete title of the book was Memorias escritas por el aventajado alumno de tercer año
de la Facultad de Medicina Don José Ma. Panganiban y Enverga en los Ejercicios de Oposición
Previos para Obtener los premios ordinarios de fin de curso en las asignaturas de Patología
General, Terapéutica y Operaciones en que obtuvo la nota de sobresaliente en los exámenes
ordinarios del presente curso de 1886 a 1887. A copy of the manuscript is extant at the AUST.
5 According to Villarroel (2012), the claustro was “an academic body which played an important
role in the affairs of the university. It was composed of university administrators, professors, and
graduates of major degrees,” much like a university council in present-day terms.
6 The programs of the Gaceta de Instrucción Publica included (a) the publication of all provisions
issued regarding public instruction, which included the primera and segunda enseñanza, the
universities, special schools, libraries, and museums, among other educational centers; (b) the
reporting of important annual reforms in education, substantial changes in instruction, and the
faculty and professors; and (c) the publication of official announcements about professorial chairs
(cátedras), oposiciones or the competitive examinations, public examinations, and the tribunal.
These programs were outlined in the Gaceta’s maiden issue. See “Nuestros Programas” in Gaceta
de Instrucción Pública 1889a.
7 See, e.g., Gaceta de Instrucción Pública 1889b. The Gaceta announced officially the names of
the members of the tribunal for the competitive examinations for the professorial chair on Penal
Law at the University of Salamanca and the names of the aspirants. It also announced a vacant
professorial post in Greek and Latin Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Universidad Central
de Madrid. Finally, it announced that, by virtue of competitive examinations, Don Miguel Vegas
y Puebla Collado was named to the vacant professorial post in Mathematical Analysis at the
University of Zaragoza.
8 Panganiban took General and Clinical Pathology in his third year of studies in 1886–1887. During
that year, he received sobresaliente (outstanding) in all three courses he took and was awarded
the premio (prize) for his exemplary performance. Cf. Real y Pontificia UST 1887a.
9 By “syllogism,” Panganiban was referring to Aristotelian syllogism, which is a three-part logical

structure in which the conclusions are deduced from a major premise, or a broad conditional
statement, to a minor premise, or a specific case. The classic example, “All men are mortals,
Socrates is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal,” illustrates this logical structure. The conclusion
may only be accepted as logical and valid if the major and minor premises are accepted as true.
10 Juan Luna was in Paris for most of 1888, and there were no indications that he was in Madrid that
year. He, therefore, could not have attended these meetings in Madrid. Bougarde must have seen
Antonio, whom he thought was Juan. Writing from Madrid, Antonio Luna related to Rizal (2011a,
225) that he was actively involved in these meetings with Morayta and had been elected to the
executive commission of the Asociación Hispano–Filipina as its treasurer.
11 Although the campaign to secularize the UST floundered and Becerra’s planned reforms for the
university received more dissensions than support, the university nevertheless implemented some
of the reforms the ilustrados (or the educated elite) and the Spanish liberals demanded. In 1896
the UST opened the Faculty of Philosophy, Science, and Letters (cf. Mojares 2006, 460). Three
decades later, in 1926, it was renamed the College of Liberal Arts. Panganiban’s demand for a
university-owned and -administered hospital came to fruition when the university opened the UST
Hospital in its sprawling Sampaloc campus in Manila in 1946.

12 The royal decree of 29 October 1875 was issued after the Bourbon monarchy was restored in Spain.
The decree reversed some of the provisions of the Moret Decree, resulting in the reinstatement
of the Dominicans and the renaming of the university from Universidad de Filipinas back to
Universidad de Santo Tomás. The decree, however, kept Moret’s provisions on the establishment
of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. See Berriz 1888.
13 Except for the short-lived administrations of Arsenio Martínez Campos from March to December
1879 and José Posada Herrera from 1883 to 1884, Cánovas and Sagasta took turns in being prime
minister from 1875 until Cánovas was assassinated by Michele Angiolillo in 1897 (for the reason
for his assassination, see Anderson 2005, 189–94). Cánovas served in 1874–1875, 1875–1879,
1879–1881, 1884–1885, 1890–1892, and 1895–1897, while Sagasta served in 1874, 1881–1883,
1885–1890, 1892–1895, and 1897–1899 (Gaceta de Madrid 1874a, 1874b, 1875a, 1875b, 1879a,
1879b, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1890, 1892, 1895, 1897, 1899).
14 The phrase “words, words, words” was an allusion to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
15 Villarroel (2020, 230) writes in a footnote that the 30 December 1890 issue was “the last issue
reedited in 1973” and was the only edition that he had been able to consult. Here, he was referring
to the first two volumes of Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon’s English translation of La Solidaridad (1889–
1890) published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1973. Villarroel notes that he was not
sure if the series continued. The other eight “La Universidad de Manila” columns are in the 1891
issues in the third volume.
16 The Canonical Law courses Becerra was referring to included Elementos de Derecho Natural
(Natural Law) and Instituciones de Derecho Canónico (Canon Law). Cf. Real y Pontificia UST 1888,
1889.
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Javier Leonardo V. Rugeria is assistant professor, Department of History, College of

Social Sciences and Philosophy, Pavilion 2, Palma Hall, Roxas Avenue, University of the Philippines,
Diliman, Quezon City. He is also cofounder and research director of Saysay Bikol, a civic organization
of historians, educators, and advocates of Bikol history and heritage based in Naga City. His research
interests include intellectual history, social history, local history (Bikol), and the history of education
and educational institutions in the Philippines. <jvrugeria@up.edu.ph>

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Philippine Studies: Historical

and Ethnographic Viewpoints

José María Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” and the

Javier Leonardo V. Rugeria

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

Copyright © Ateneo de Manila University

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints is

This article examines José María Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila”

KEYWORDS: JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN • UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS •

222 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 223

224 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 225

Panganiban at the Universidad de Santo Tomás

226 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

The Propaganda Movement in Barcelona

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 227

228 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 229

On the Appointment of Professors

230 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 231

232 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 233

234 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

On the Thomistic Pedagogical Paradigm

The manner in which major and minor surgery is taught by the

Panganiban explained that the absence of clinical practice in Brea’s class

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 235

Source: Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan 1896

Another point Panganiban raised in his critique of the Faculty of

236 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

On the Lack of Facilities for Clinical Practice

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 237

A Wider Campaign for Reforms in Higher Education

Manuel Becerra’s Initiatives

238 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 239

240 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

The Campaign for Reforms Flounders

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 241

Courtesy of the Del Pilar Museum,

242 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

The Conservatives’ Return to Power

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 243

244 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

Reviving Panganiban’s Campaign

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 245

TITLE AUTHOR PUBLICATION DATE

The University of Manila: Its Curriculum - 15 Dec. 1890

246 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 247

248 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

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250 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

9 By “syllogism,” Panganiban was referring to Aristotelian syllogism, which is a three-part logical

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 251

252 PSHEV 69, NO. 2 (2021)

———. 2006. Letters of Marcelo del Pilar, vol. 1. Manila: NHI.

———. 1889b. Noticias. Año 1, num. 1, 5 Mar. HD-BNE, Madrid.

RUGERIA / JOSÉ MARÍA PANGANIBAN’S “LA UNIVERSIDAD DE MANILA” 253

Luna, Antonio (Esparadrapo Pharmaceutico). 1996. La Universidad de Manila: Facultad de Farmacia/

Morayta, Miguel. 1996. Asociación Hispano–Filipina/The Spanish-Philippine Association. In La

Panganiban, José María. 1883. Diligencias de grados. AUST, Manila.

Rugeria, Javier Leonardo v. 2021. Jose Maria Panganiban's La Universidad de Manila (PSHEV) 2

Rugeria, Javier Leonardo v. 2021. Jose Maria Panganiban's La Universidad de Manila (PSHEV) 2