The story
Early History (1908-1930s)
UPLB was originally established as the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA) on March 6, 1909, by the UP Board of Regents to promote agricultural education and research in the Philippines. Edwin Copeland, an American botanist and Thomasite from the Philippine Normal College in Manila, was its first dean. Classes began in June 1909 with five professors while 12 students initially enrolled in the program. UPCA was the first college to be organized in UP following the enactment of the University Act of 1908.
In 1910, the Forest School was established as a branch of the College of Agriculture. Staffed initially by American instructors from the Bureau of Forestry, the school represented the earliest formal efforts to institutionalize forestry education in the Philippines.
In 1912, Dr. Charles Fuller Baker, an accomplished agriculturist and scientist, joined the College as professor and head of the Department of Agronomy. Baker played a pivotal role in strengthening the academic and research foundations of the college. In 1918, the College of Veterinary Science was transferred from Pandacan, Manila to Los Baños. By the early 1920s, enrollment had increased to 621 students, representing most provinces of the Philippines as well as several foreign countries, including China, Siam, Guam, Java, India, and Japan. This growth placed the UPCA among the larger units of the University of the Philippines during that period.
World War II and Its Postwar Reconstruction (1940s)
During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, UPCA was closed and the campus converted into an internment camp for allied nationals and a headquarters of the Japanese army. For three years, the college was home to more than 2,000 civilians, mostly Americans, that were captured by the Japanese. In 1945, as part of the liberation of the Philippines, the US Army sent 130 11th Airborne Division paratroopers to Los Baños to rescue the internees. Only four paratroopers and two Filipino guerrillas were killed in the raid. However, Japanese reinforcements arrived two days later, destroying UPCA facilities and killing some 1,500 Filipino civilians in Los Baños soon afterwards.
UPCA became the first unit of the University of the Philippines to open after the war, with Leopoldo Uichanco as dean. However, only 125 (16 percent) of the original students enrolled. It was even worse for the School of Forestry, which only had nine students. Likewise, only 38 professors returned to teach. UPCA used its ₱470,546 (US$10,800) share in the Philippine-US War Damage Funds (released in 1947) for reconstruction.
Further financial endowments from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Mutual Security Agency (MSA) allowed the construction of new facilities, while scholarship grants, mainly from the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Cooperation Administration, helped fund the training of UPCA faculty. From 1947 to 1958, a total of 146 faculty members had been granted MS and PhD scholarships in US universities.
Growth and International Collaboration (1950s-1960s)
Dioscoro Umali became UPCA dean in 1959. Umali's administration oversaw the creation of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA); of which he was the first director), Dairy Training and Research Institute, and the Department of Food Science and Technology. New facilities were also constructed under his Five-Year Development Program.
Cornell University was instrumental in the post-war rebuilding of UP's Los Baños colleges. The Cornell-Los Baños project, implemented in 1952 to 1960, involved the rebuilding of UPCA's physical plant and Central Experiment Station, procurement of scientific equipment, and upgrading of teaching standards. A similar undertaking between Cornell, Syracuse University, the State University of New York, and the UP College of Forestry was implemented between 1957 and 1963. A "sister university relationship" was formally established in 1962 through the UP-Cornell Graduate Education program, which sought to develop and expand UP's agricultural education, research and extension programs, and to strengthen Cornell's own international agricultural development program. The program ended in 1972.
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Political and Institutional Challenges
The 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis under the Ferdinand Marcos government marked the beginning of a prolonged period of social unrest across the country, including in UP Los Baños. This period of unrest, which included the First Quarter Storm, coincided with another issue, which was the call for the UP College of Agriculture to become independent from the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
Later in 1972, UPCA formally requested Ferdinand Marcos to allow the college to secede from the University of the Philippines due to the alleged withholding of its budget and the disapproval of curricular proposals. However, UP President Salvador P. Lopez strongly opposed the idea. A survey also found that there was very little support for complete independence at UPCA. As a compromise, Lopez proposed the transformation of UP into a system of autonomous constituent universities. Finally, on November 20, 1972, Presidential Decree No. 58 was signed, establishing UPLB as UP's first autonomous campus, with UPCA, College of Forestry, Agricultural Credit and Cooperatives Institute, Dairy Training and Research Institute, and the Diliman-based Agrarian Reform Institute as its first academic units. New colleges and research centers were created over the next few years, while the College of Veterinary Medicine was likewise transferred to UPLB from UP Diliman. Dr. Abelardo Samonte was appointed first chancellor of UPLB and led a comprehensive reorganization of the university.
Establishment of Research and Academic Centers
Following its grant of autonomy, UPLB also expanded its research, and extension functions with the establishment of specialized units such as the Institute of Plant Breeding (1975), National Crop Protection Center (1976), Post-Harvest Horticulture and Training Center (1977), and the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH; 1979). UPLB also strengthened its academic foundation with the creation of a new college and several academic institutes, such as the College of Science and Humanities (1973), Graduate School (1973), Institute of Human Ecology (1974), Institute of Agricultural Development and Administration (1975), and the Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Technology (1976).
Following the death of Chancellor Samonte in December 25, 1978, Dr. Emil Q. Javier succeeded him as the second chancellor (1979–1985), later serving as UP System President (1993–1999). Javier had been instrumental in building the university’s research infrastructure even prior to his chancellorship, notably as the founding director of the Institute of Plant Breeding. In 1983, through Javier’s initiative, Executive Order No. 889 was issued to establish the National Centers of Excellence in the Basic Sciences. The order designated several units within the UP System as national centers to bolster the country's scientific research capacity. At UP Los Baños, this included the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Chemistry, and the Institute of Biological Sciences.
Dr. Javier's leadership continued at the system level during his term as UP President (1993–1999). During this period, he led the establishment of UP Open University and UP Mindanao, and institutionalized the Ugnayan ng Pahinungod volunteer program. He also expanded the biotechnology program into a network known as the National Institutes of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB), with units across the UP System's major campuses.
Student Journalism
Meanwhile, the establishment of UPLB as an autonomous campus also saw the establishment of the UPLB Perspective as its student paper in 1973 – earning it the distinction of being one of the first student newspapers to be allowed to publish after the September 1972 martial law crackdown on newspapers and other media establishments.
Academic Growth and Global Engagement
From the 2000s to the early 2020s, UPLB underwent a period of institutional modernization, digital transition, and increased focus on campus security and student welfare. These years were also marked by significant challenges, including destructive typhoons and the COVID-19 pandemic, which tested the university’s resilience and adaptability.
UPLB introduced new academic offerings to include undergraduate degrees in Agricultural Biotechnology (2010), Mechanical Engineering (2021), Materials Engineering (2022), Accountancy (2024), and Sports Science (2025), as well as associate programs in Entrepreneurship (2022), Development Communication (2023), and Sports Studies (2023).
UPLB’s graduate programs have also continued to expand across diverse disciplines, with the 2020s marking the introduction of notable programs in environmental management, resilience, and sustainability as well as new “PhD by Research” programs. In 2015, the Nagoya University Asian Satellite Campuses Institute was established at the Graduate School, offering transnational doctoral programs in various fields. UPLB has also launched Dual Doctor of Philosophy by Research programs with the University of Montpellier in France, the University of Reading and the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and Curtin University in Australia (in collaboration with UP Mindanao), allowing students to earn doctorates from both institutions through joint supervision and study arrangements.
Academic Reforms and the Pandemic Years
Institutionally, the university responded to national reforms, notably navigating the academic adjustments and student intake gap caused by the implementation of the K-12 Basic Education Program in the mid-2010s. Simultaneously, UPLB adopted the Student Academic Information System (SAIS) for registration, a controversial digital transition that generated significant and sustained student protests due to technical difficulties.
During the pandemic years (2020-2021), the UP including UPLB shifted to remote learning and research, mobilized experts and resources to aid the national COVID-19 response. UPLB also established a subnational COVID-19 testing laboratory equipped with an RT-PCR machine, repurposing one of its existing research facilities for this effort.
Recent Campus Development
In recent years (2022-2025), the government launched new construction projects in UPLB. These include the construction of a new main library, the Food Processing Research and Development Center, the Agricultural and Economic Development Studies Center, and a microbial bank for the BIOTECH Philippine National Collection of Microorganisms. Construction of the Agricultural Genomics Research Center (AGRC), a collaboration among UPLB, KOICA, and IRRI, has begun and is set to be completed in early 2026 as a state-of-the-art hub for genome-based research advancing crop and livestock improvement, food security, and capacity building.
Other Notable Incidents Affecting the UPLB Community
When martial law was declared in September 1972, Marcos cracked down on any form of criticism or activism, leading to the arrest, torture and/or killing of Los Baños residents. Those killed included student activists Alexander Mecenas Gonzales, Modesto "Bong" Sison, and Manuel Bautista, campus journalists Antero Santos and Alfredo Malicay, and botany teaching fellow Cesar Hicaro. Meanwhile, Chemistry instructor Aloysius Baes was among those who were arrested and tortured. Those who went missing ("desaparecidos"), meanwhile, included Tish Ladlad, Cristina Catalla, Gerardo "Gerry" Faustino, Rizalina Ilagan, Ramon Jasul, and Jessica Sales.
Violent crime incidents in the UPLB community, with some resulting in the deaths of students (Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez in 1993, Given Grace Cebanico in 2011, Ray Bernard Peñaranda and Maria Victoria Reyes in 2012) were widely covered by the national media. As a result, national government agencies, the local government of Los Baños, and the university administration have enacted more stringent security measures.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of the Philippines Los Baños, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3