FORMER Angelicum School Iloilo principal Fr. John Stephen Besa, O.P. has been named the 13th rector and president of the UST Angelicum College in Quezon City, the mother institution of the Angelicum School in Jaro.
UST Angelicum announced Besa’s appointment on Aug. 13 and made it official on Aug. 28 during the solemn commissioning ceremony led by Fr. Filemon de la Cruz Jr., O.P., prior provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines.
“I am filled with hopeful visions as I dare accept this challenge,” the newly installed rector said in his commissioning ceremony. “Let us roll up our sleeves and get to business. Let us pour in the hard work, and above all, the heart work.”
Besa succeeded Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P., who returned to the college as pro-vice rector in 2021 after serving two terms as UST rector.
Dagohoy, who first took over the rectorship of UST Angelicum in 2004, is now engaging in missionary work in Indonesia, the Varsitarian has learned.
A UST alumnus, Besa joined the Order of Preachers in 2000.
He obtained his philosophy degree at the Philippine Dominican Center of Institutional Studies in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology from the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties in 2012.
Besa was ordained a priest in 2014 before pursuing further studies in 2015 at the Institute of Preaching, where he earned his Master of Arts in Preaching.
In 2016, he became a parish priest in Camiguin Island in Mindanao and the principal of the Dominican-run Lyceum of Camiguin, a partner school of the Colegio de San Juan de Letran.
Besa assumed the position of vice president for religious affairs of Letran Manila in 2018 before transferring to the Visayas to become principal of Angelicum School Iloilo.
Formerly named Angelicum School before being elevated to college status in 1996, the UST Angelicum College in Quezon City is the first non-graded school in the Philippines.
It was integrated with UST in 2017 as part of the Dominican Province of the Philippines’s strategy to streamline its educational systems. Carlo Jose H. Ruga
