THE RECTOR exhorted graduating students to be brave enough to bear the brunt of persecution and to anchor themselves in Thomasian values to stand against massive corruption.
In his homily for the morning batch of the 2026 Baccalaureate Mass, UST Rector Fr. Richard Ang, O.P., urged the graduating class to participate in promoting integrity and human dignity outside the campus.
“Align your actions with your values as you navigate this world. And be active agents of positive change. Make it contagious once and for all,” he said.
Ang highlighted the importance of ethics and humanities in society, maintaining that they should always be part of general education (GE) amid a proposal to remove them from the tertiary curriculum.
GE courses, particularly ethics, provide a strong moral foundation that leads to good decision-making, he stressed.
“As your rector, I strongly believe that ethics and the humanities should always be an essential part of the general education curriculum as it equips students with a faculty for the moral reasons needed for making the right choices in life,” he stated.
The Commission on Higher Education has postponed the implementation of the reframed GE curriculum, which aims to reduce the number of GE units to a minimum of 18, removing courses such as ethics and Rizal.
The Rector urged the graduating seniors to remain firm in the values taught by the University amid corruption and other national issues.
“May tiwala ako sa inyo, nakakasiguro ako na mayroon kayong pinanghahawakang prinsipyo na maka-Diyos, makatao at makakalikasan para labanan ang malawakang katiwalian at korapsyon sa ating bansa,” Ang said.
“Hindi ito madaling gawin… dahil may mga makakabangga kayo, may kokontra sa inyo, pero kakayanin niyo sa paggamit ng tamang pamamaraan. At kailanman, ang dahas, ang paghasik ng gulo, ang pagtataas ng boses ay hindi tamang paraan para bigyang solusyon ang problema,” he added.
Graduating students were divided into morning and afternoon batches to fit within the QPav’s 5,000-seat capacity.
Nearly 3,900 graduating students attended the morning session of the Baccalaureate Mass, from the following colleges: Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Arts and Letters, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Conservatory of Music, College of Nursing, College of Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Fine Arts and Design, UST Alfredo M. Velayo – College of Accountancy, and College of Information and Computing Sciences.
A total of 11,523 students are set to graduate from the University in Academic Year 2025-2026, with 7,889 students coming from bachelor’s and professional programs.
For the second consecutive year, the University held the Baccalaureate Mass for graduating students at the Quadricentennial Pavilion (QPav) instead of the UST Open Field and Grandstand to avoid disruptions in the event of heavy rain.
The University has prepared an outdoor post-Mass program at the UST Grandstand and Open Field, beginning at 6 p.m.
Downpours forced last year’s open-air Baccalaureate Mass to be rescheduled indoors, with the University moving the 2026 sendoff rites to the QPav the day after.
