Story & photos by Rizal Raoul Reyes
THE Bonifacio Global City (BGC) will now experience the Lasallian brand of education when the Christian Brothers, together with their supporters and distinguished alumni, inaugurated on February 18 the De La Salle Rufino Campus, the latest member of the De La Salle School System.
Lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno, the dean of the College of Law (COL), expressed satisfaction to the location of La Salle’s training ground for the future lawyers of the country.
“The location is convenient and very accessible and it is very easy to get from one part to another in the area. We’re very happy with our location and we’re very happy here,” Diokno explained.
Aside from offering and providing quality law education anchored on human rights, governance and the judicial system, Diokno disclosed the COL will also champion sustainable development. Furthermore, the COL is pushing the envelope so to speak, as the De La Salle University (DLSU) Rufino Campus aims to get a five-star rating from the Philippine Green Building Council’s Building for Ecologically Responsible Design Excellence (Berde) Rating System.
Berde, developed by the Philippine Green Building Council (PGBC), is a tool to address the need of the local construction industry the adverse impacts of climate change in the property sector.
In addition to courses in the environment, Diokno said the De La Salle Rufino campus offer electives on the environment, as well as para-legal training and related activities. “I am very happy to say we have the best environmental lawyers here as professors, such as Dean Antonio La Viña, Atty. Antonio Oposa, and other seasoned lawyers on environmental laws,” Diokno explained.
The 1,395-square-meter building has 18 classrooms, an auditorium, a moot court and a library. The P350-million campus, located in the University Parkway of BGC, will offer other continuing education programs. Diokno pointed out that it is part of the educational institution’s mission to make Lasallian education more accessible to young professionals in the burgeoning financial district.
To manage the heat, Diokno said the seven-story edifice was designed with floor-to-ceiling windows that allow more natural light.
Currently, the school has only more than 600 law students using its 17 classrooms, auditorium, arbitration room and moot court.
DLSU officials said they may soon welcome more students from their graduate business programs.
Diokno said the new campus is one of the biggest in the country and that the arbitration room is also probably a first among law schools.
Image credits: Rizal Raoul Reyes
2 comments
Accessible, they say. Really? Have they seen the traffic in BGC lately? It’s as bad as anywhere.
“Enter to LEARN Leave to SERVE”
– Saint Jean Baptiste de La Salle