Over 12,000 Thomasians began their first steps toward the future during the 2025 onboarding season of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in the first week of August.

The Thomasian community gathered as one for the inaugural academic lecture (Discurso de Apertura) for the academic year 2025 to 2026, which was delivered by the UST-AMV College of Accountancy dean and Global Accounting Hall of Fame inductee Prof. Patricia M. Empleo, Ph.D., on August 5, 2025. Her lecture “Internal Control: Key to Effective Enterprise Risk Management” underscored how to lead institutions to be adaptive and resilient amidst the risks of the contemporary world.

This Discurso de Apertura is the first lecture for the academic year, following a tradition as old as the secondary education system in the Philippines. An inaugural academic lecture has been an essential part in the opening exercises of universities across Europe, and was adapted by UST since 1866 to conform with the tradition of the Dominican houses of studies of starting every school year with a conference called Lectio Prima, or first lecture.

Prior to the lecture, His Excellency Most Rev. Marcelino Antonio Maralit, Jr., D.D., bishop of San Pablo, Laguna presided over the Misa de Apertura (Mass of the Holy Spirit) and formally declared open the academic year at the UST Chapel (Santísimo Rosario Parish Church). Through the publicly viewable opening mass, which was also streamed live via the official UST Manila and UST General Santos Facebook pages, Thomasians onsite, online, and within different campuses entrusted the new academic year to the Lord’s will and divine inspiration.

Together, the annual Thomasian traditions of the Misa de Apertura (Mass of the Holy Spirit) and the Discurso de Apertura (Inaugural Lecture) reflect the University’s mission to unite faith and reason in the pursuit of Veritas in Caritate (Truth in Charity), shared the UST Secretary-General Rev. Fr. Louie R. Coronel, O.P., EHL, in a circular released in July.

Prof. Patricia Empleo, Ph.D., who has been teaching in UST since 1997 and serving as dean of the UST-AMV College of Accountancy since 2013, drew from decades of laudable expertise in accounting and teaching. She is a 2017 inductee of the Global Accounting Hall of Fame by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants and a conferee of the ​​2021 Pillar of Accounting Education by the National Association of Certified Public Accountants in Education (NACPAE), and the 2022 Outstanding CPA in Education award by the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA).

Dr. Empleo was appointed assessor of the ASEAN University Network (AUN) for quality assessment of business programs of the member universities of the AUN, and has also been involved in many professional organizations, including being a member of the Board of Directors and Secretary of the International Academy of Accountants for Business, Research and Education.

The onboarding season continues tomorrow, August 6, 2025, with a hallmark tradition called the Thomasian Welcome Walk. Thomasian freshmen are welcomed through the same threshold used by multiple generations of Thomasians since the 1600s: the National Cultural Treasure named the Arch of the Centuries. For the 12,000 freshmen of 2025, their Welcome Walk begins their first steps toward the future and the cycle that will end in a few years at their Baccalaureate Mass, when they will exit through the Arch.

Serving as a reminder of the University’s rich history, these entry and exit traditions connect Thomasians across four centuries of excellence, since the Arch was the original gateway of the University back in its original Intramuros campus, where it operated for over 300 years before moving to its present 21.5-hectare site at España Boulevard in the late 1920s. The Arch was taken from the old Intramuros building and reassembled piece by piece in the Sampaloc campus after World War II.

Regular classes across UST’s campuses begin on August 7, 2025, after a series of hybrid and onsite onboarding activities including virtual and in-person ROARientations, Triduum Masses for St. Dominic de Guzman, a fair, and the Thomasian welcome party, among others. With around 40,000 students currently in the Manila campus, it remains the largest Catholic university in terms of student population in a single campus.

UST’s General Santos campus, inaugurated in April 2024, also participated in the Discurso via hy-flex modality, with the Associate Vice Rector for Finance and Administration Rev. Fr. Edmund Nantes, O.P. leading the in-person Eucharistic Celebration. The growing campus will offer new degree programs including Bachelor of Science in Biology, major in Medical Biology, BS in Accounting, and BS in Civil Engineering beginning AY 2026-2027, reflecting UST’s leaping expansion from Luzon to Mindanao.