The University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) campus is set to start the construction of its first phase of the extension campus in Agriya complex in Panabo City, Davao del Norte within the second quarter, company officials said last week.
At the sidelines of the unveiling of the mixed-use project, Macy P. Bibat, project manager of Agriya, the mixed-use project of Damosa Land Inc. (DLI), said that the first building will be a two-floor building that will have about 1,500 square meters in floor area.
The campus, to be named the University of the Philippines Professional School for Agriculture and Environment, will sit on a three-hectare area of the 88-hectare Agriya project.
Bibat said that the company is donating the land for the campus, but the university will also set up other facilities like laboratories.
Ricardo Lagdameo, DLI first vice president said the academic institution, which will become the first UPLB campus in Mindanao, is one of the four main components of the complex which also include residential, commercial, and agri-tourism components.
Lagdameo said that setting up the extension of campus of the university has been a “long time coming” for the company.
He added that the graduate school is not the only academic institution they would be building in the Agriya complex as the company is also looking at other schools to set up their campuses in the project.
“The UP school will be a professional school, so it will be holding masteral and PhD programs, and special short courses. But what we also want here is the Kto12 school. So we really want cater to the whole range from kinder all the way up to PhD level,” he said.
Department of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, guest of honor of the event, was glad at the building of the new UP-Los Baños campus in Mindanao as she was a product from the same institution.
Agriya is a masterplan community that focuses on agriculture which is why it is a suitable location for an agri-environment academic institution, he said.
The name was a play of words to mean “agricultural city by Anflocor” and serves as an agricultural metropolis, the first in Mindanao, which is expected to encourage investments in trade and tourism in Panabo.
