University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi
The Premier Dominican University of Bicol
The Premier Dominican University of Bicol
The University of Santo Tomas-Legazpi welcomed its students back today, July 13, with the customary Mass for the Holy Spirit at the UST-Legazpi Dome, marking the formal opening of Academic Year 2026-2027 and setting off a week of orientations across every department of the campus.
Following University tradition, classes did not simply begin. They were prayed into being. The Mass was presided over by Rev. Fr. Jaime Alamil, O.P., STB, Vice President for Religious Affairs, and concelebrated by the Dominican Fathers of the St. Raymond de Peñafort Convent.
In his homily, Rev. Fr. Gallardo A. Bombase Jr., O.P., MBA, opened with a simple question to the students and staff filling the Dome: Why are we gathered here, at the beginning of Academic Year 2026-2027? Why are we here?
The Mass, he said, is not a bureaucratic requirement of a Catholic institution but a spiritual necessity. “We cannot live without God,” he told the congregation, “as we cannot live without oxygen in life.” As a Catholic Dominican institution, he added, the Mass remains “the source and summit of the Christian life” — the wellspring of grace and the high point of worship alike.
Fr. Bombase illustrated the point with a familiar parable: a boy who strains alone to move a boulder blocking his path, only to fail, until his father kneels beside him with some life-changing advice. “You didn’t use all your strength,” the father tells his son. “You never asked me to help.” Together, father and son push the rock aside with ease. The lesson, the priest told the community, is one many people resist learning — that we do not have to carry life’s burdens alone, and that “true strength often comes from simply asking for help.”
That, he said, is why the university turns to the Holy Spirit at the start of every academic year — to ask God “for the light, and strength of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of an important task.” Fr. Bombase offered the community a simple starting point for deepening that relationship: a short prayer inviting the Spirit in — “Come Holy Spirit, show me what is your will” — paired with a willingness to listen and to ask for the Spirit’s seven gifts. Learning, he reminded the community, “is not only about information, but about wisdom,” and pursuing it well requires grace as much as effort. As Legazpi Thomasians, he said, the community’s task is to seek the Spirit of Truth — Veritas — so that “our minds and hearts attune to God.”
While the Dome filled with prayer, preparations were already underway across UST-Legazpi’s other departments for a week of welcomes.
The Preschool and Elementary Department kicked off its own five-day welcome program, “ROARientation,” running July 13 to 17 under the theme Ready, Set, Roar! New and returning “little tigers” will move through a mix of departmental and classroom orientations, a club-hopping activity, and psychosocial and formation sessions — all built around three goals the department has set for the week: reaching out to new friends, getting acquainted with the school family, and rising to become the best versions of themselves.
Meanwhile, the Junior High School and Senior High School departments held their own homeroom orientations today. Junior High students also cast their votes in the Student Coordinating Council (SCC) elections, choosing the peers who will represent them for the year ahead.
The welcome activities continue tomorrow, July 14, when the Office of Student Services holds its Orientation Seminar for the wider student body.
From the solemnity of the Dome to the energy of classroom orientations and club fairs, UST-Legazpi’s opening day carried a single thread through it: a community asking, together, for the guidance to make the year ahead a good one.