THE DOMINICAN Order, after plunging into a bitter dispute over how to redevelop the University hospital, is now seeking “closure” to the controversy that led to a leadership shakeup in both UST and the Philippine Dominican Province last year.
In an indication of an emerging consensus on how to proceed with the UST Hospital expansion plan, which was halted last year to make way for a thorough review, Filipino Dominicans elected Fr. Quirico Pedregosa, O.P. as prior provincial in their quadrennial provincial chapter in Bicol last month.
Pedregosa had been prior provincial before moving up to the Dominican Curia in Rome as the master general’s assistant for the Asia-Pacific.
Pedregosa accompanied the Master of the Order and the UST Grand Chancellor, Fr. Carlos Azpiroz Costa, O.P., to the Philippines last September for a canonical visit — which saw the resignations of UST Rector Fr. Ernesto Arceo, O.P., Vice Rector Fr. Juan Ponce, O.P., and Fr. Edmund Nantes, O.P., prior provincial and UST vice chancellor over the hospital controversy.
Pedregosa was tasked by Azpiroz to stay behind UST and make sure his order to review the hospital plan and cancel or renegotiate the P3-billion to build a hospital tower was followed.
Dominican fathers had overwhelmingly voted to name the Master’s choice of acting rector, Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P., as Arceo’s successor.
Once the Dominican Master General approves the Acts of the 2008 provincial chapter, Fr. Pedregosa and his council will have to resolve the issue.
“For the sake of healing and strengthening of our fraternal bond, we exhort the Prior Provincial and his Council to seek out appropriate means to put closure to the UST Hospital issue,” says the only entry in the Acts on the UST Hospital.
The document, which would serve as guidelines for the Filipino Dominicans for the next four years, was crafted in the Ninth Chapter of the Dominican Province of the Philippines in the Convent of St. Raymund of Peñafort (Aquinas University) in Legazpi City, Albay last March 25 to April 16. The gathering focused on “healing, transparency, and presence,” Dominican officials said.
According to Fr. Nilo Lardizabal, O.P., secretary of the chapter, the delegates had little to say about UST and the hospital because they are not under the jurisdiction of the chapter.
“The University of Santo Tomas is not under the jurisdiction of the Philippine Dominican Province,” Lardizabal told the Varsitarian. “It is directly under Rome and the Holy Father.”
Twenty-one priests attended the chapter to deliberate on the province’s affairs for the past and the next four years. The results were forwarded to the diffinitors, who were the last to examine the Acts before it was sent to the Dominican Curia in Rome last week.
The final draft was signed by the prior provincial, his secretary and four diffinitors — Fr. Enrico D. Gonzales, O.P., Fr. Eugenio Cabillon, O.P., Fr. Gerard Francisco Timoner II, O.P. and Fr. Clarence Victor Marquez, O.P
A week from now, the Philippine Dominican Province expects the response from Rome to arrive, which signals the start of the execution of the Acts.
Root cause
The hospital controversy erupted last September when Azpiroz declared the spinoff of UST Hospital, Inc. into a separate corporation and the P3-billion loan to build a 19-storey hospital tower illegal under the Dominican Constitution and the Canon Law provision on the alienation of Church property, which requires Vatican approval for transactions over $100,000.
A group of priests and doctors opposed the plans as well as the loan from a consortium of banks, claiming the University would lose control over the hospital despite the fact that UST officials sat on its board of trustees.
Azpiroz said he wanted to “protect the patrimony of the University.”
Last March, De la Rosa formed an ad hoc committee to review the redevelopment plans of the UST Hospital in line with the instructions of the master general.
The acting rector asked Faculty of Engineering regent Fr. Arthur Dingel, O.P. to review and revise the hospital development plans.
According to Dingel, the committee eventually sent several recommendations to the rector, among them the renegotiation of the P 3-billion loan.
The temporary committee will go over the development plans for the hospital’s physical plant, property and equipment, and projects and programs, among others.
De la Rosa earlier said that Azpiroz wanted the hospital redevelopment to push through, but on a more manageable level that would not endanger the patrimony of the University.
Re-elected
After serving as assistant to the Dominican master for Asia-Pacific, Pedregosa is back for a third term as head of the Philippine province and vice chancellor of UST.
According to the UST General Statutes, the vice chancellor “substitutes for the Chancellor in the latter’s absence” and is an ex-officio member of the University’s Board of Trustees.
Although he was not able to attend the chapter of the Dominican Province, Pedregosa was still elected provincial.
In 1991, after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, Pedregosa together with other religious communities spearheaded a plan for the integral rehabilitation of a devastated barrio.
Also, it was during his term that the grand gathering of the worldwide Dominican Family of priests, brothers, nuns, and lay people was held in the country in 2000.
Pedregosa joined the Order of Preachers in 1971. He pursued his theological studies in the University, where he also taught theology after his ordination in 1981.
