The Philippine Online Chronicles

The University of Santo Tomas (UST) has denied the claim of a report which alleged that it broke academic rules when it granted a doctorate in law to Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona even without a dissertation, Inquirer.net reports.

“There is no truth to the allegation that the University of Santo Tomas broke its rules to favor Chief Justice Renato Corona who graduated with the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University,” UST said in its statement sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI).

The world’s largest Catholic university added that Corona “had enrolled in all of the requisite subjects leading to the doctorate, attended his classes, passed them and delivered a ‘scholarly treatise’ for his dissertation in a public lecture,” the report said.

UST’s statement was a response to an article published by the PDI on New Year’s eve which alleged that Corona did not meet the requirements for obtaining a doctorate degree since he does not have a dissertation and he failed to fulfil the five-year residency requirement.

The article was written by journalist Marites Vitug of Rappler.com, who is also founding editor of Newsbreak, an independent news site. She is also being eyed as witness in the impeachment trial against Corona scheduled this month.

“This unusual practice may set a precedent in UST and send a wrong signal to students that rank and influence trump academic rigor,” Vitug said in her article.

UST explained that it has been declared by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) an “autonomous higher educational institution (HEI),” and has been deputized to implement the program which grants academic degrees to individuals  “whose relevant work experiences, professional achievements and stature, as well as high-level, nonformal and informal training are deemed equivalent to the academic requirements for such degrees.”

It said Corona did not obtain his doctorate degree through the special program.

“He painstakingly completed the 48 units’ course work in the Ph.D. in Law curriculum by regularly attending classes and fulfilling all the requirements in the subjects that he took. He also underwent the required written comprehensive examination and passed this with excellent results,” it said.

Online journalism questioned

The university went further on to criticize the news site which published the article. It said it did not reply to Vitug’s query because it was at a loss on how to respond to “online journalism,” the Inquirer.net report said.

“We understand that while Miss Vitug used to be a print journalist, she’s part of an online magazine, Newsbreak, which has reportedly been subsumed into ‘www.rappler.com.’ What’s that?

“Is that a legitimate news organization? What individuals and entities fund Newsbreak and Rappler? Do these outfits have editors? Who challenged Miss Vitug’s article before it went online so as to establish its accuracy, objectivity and fairness? Why was there no prior disclosure made? What gate-keeping measures does online journalism practice?” UST said in its statement.