University of the Philippines Diliman Campus: The Untold Origin

This is the untold origin of the University of the Philippines.

Here are some of my recent findings, not as a professional historian, but as a curious individual.

These findings are based on commercial and legal documents whose original purposes were for documentation as required by law and contracts.

Yet, such documents are a very important source of history.

After all, history is sourced from documents, not the other way around.

Now, let us proceed to the untold origin of the University of the Philippines.

Have you read the news lately about the land titling issues around the UP Diliman Campus?

Here are clippings:

39-year-old Technohub land dispute continues

(This report was first published in print in issue 20 of the Philippine Collegian on 12 December 2011.)

by Isabella Patricia Borlaza

A 39-year old land dispute involving a private individual’s claim of a part of UP Diliman property is set to be reviewed once again, after the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) submitted a second motion for referral to the Supreme Court (SC) on November 24.

And also this case:

PUNO, J.:

This treats of the Report submitted to this Court by the Former Special Fourth Division of the Court of Appeals, dated July 30, 2003, pursuant to our Resolution, dated December 7, 2001, directing said court to receive evidence on the conflicting claims over the subject properties covered by TCT Nos. 52928 and 52929 between private respondents Jorge H. Chin and Renato B. Mallari, on the one hand, and intervenor University of the Philippines (UP), on the other.

The case at bar is another crass attempt to grab part of the Diliman Campus of the University of the Philippines. Over and over again, this Court has ruled that the title of UP over its Diliman Campus is indefeasible and beyond dispute. We cannot deviate from this ruling.

You can google for more UP land grabbing, land scamming cases.

What is the University of the Philippines' untold origin?

Here is what history books do not tell us. This origin is taken from a document. Remember, documents were not written for history. There were encoded and entered as transactions in the ordinary course of business on a day to day basis. Unlike history, documents do not make up angles or perspectives or interpretations.

One document, a certificate of land title, numbered OCT-01-4 which was created formally in 1764 (yes, it's that old), was preserved, and re-constituted, and re-created and re-registered whenever the land registration changed over the years, contains certain annotations at the back.

One such annotation is relevant to:

University of the Philippines Diliman Campus

This annotation was dated May 5, 1939 and numbered CLRO 0101 S-5-5-39

GLRO 0101 S-5-5-39

In conjunction with the establishment of University of the Philippines and the place thereof from Manila to Diliman embodied under Act No. 1870, and in honor of his cousin: Conrado Benitez, and a tribute to his second cousin, late Ignacio Villamor, its first President, Don Esteban Benitez Tallano extended a Deed of Donation of around seventy five (75) hectares of land in Diliman District for the permanent location of University of the Philippines. (Sgd)  TEODORO GONZALES Register of Deeds

May 5, 1939

What does the above transactional annotation document in the land title OCT-01-4 tell us?

It tell us what history books have failed to capture.

1. Don Esteban Benitez Tallano donated 75 hectares in Diliman, to the University of the Philippines.
2. The purpose was the establishment of UP Diliman as an extension campus of UP Manila under Act. 1870.
3. He donated it in honor of his cousin, Conrado Benitez.
4. And as a tribute to his second cousin, who had died, Ignacio Villamor, the first President of UP.
5. The donation was annotated by the Teodoro Gonzales, Register of Deeds in 1939.
6. Yes, as recently as 1939, the OCT 01-4 has been recognized as authentic and existing title.

As you have noticed, the annotations and the history accounts dovetail in agreement.

This is what the history books failed to capture, but in reality was documented not by a historian, but by an officer who was doing his work in the ordinary course of business on day to day basis.

And this is a validation, once again, of the existence and the authenticity of Torrens Title OCT-01-4 issued to the name of

"Prince Lacan Acuña Tallano Tagean (formerly Tagean Clan), married with Princess Rowena Ma. Elizabeth Overbeck Macleod of Austria, the owner in Fee simple of certain lands, known as HACIENDA FILIPINA" History from original source documents! What a refreshing perspective.