The UP Manila Community Health and Development Program (CHDP) is the unit mandated to enter into partnerships with communities (Local Government Units or Non-Government Organizations or Faith-Based Organizations or People’s Organizations) for the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Community-Based Health Programs.

The UP CHDP is guided by its Conceptual Framework which recognizes the University’s role in local and national development. It seeks to have a deeper understanding of this role in order to better allocate resources towards this goal. In fulfilling this role, the UP CHDP engages local communities as partners in health and development, recognizing that health can only be attained through health and social measures. The aim is to assist the communities to be healthier and empowered. Central to this Conceptual Framework is the Primary Health Care Approach from the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration.

The objectives of the UP CHDP are: (1) To provide learning opportunities for the faculty and students of UP in the principles and practice of community health and development (LEARNING); and (2) To assist communities in attaining enhanced capacities in managing their own health care and development through the Primary Health Care Approach (SERVICE).

Dr. Anthony Geronimo H. Cordero

The UP Comprehensive Community Health Program (UP CCHP) was the lead unit of the University in its engagement with the Municipality of Bay in the Province of Laguna from 1967 to 1989. The different colleges collaborated with one another in this program. When the University disengaged from Bay, Laguna in 1989, the CCHP was dissolved and its faculty members were assigned to the different colleges of UP Manila. Beginning in 1989, the different colleges engaged their own respective community partners. Notable examples include the College of Public Health, which worked with Cavite; the College of Allied Medical Professions, which worked with Montalban, Rizal (now Rodriguez, Rizal); the College of Nursing, which worked with Nagcarlan, Laguna; and the College of Medicine, which worked with Laurel, Batangas and Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

In 1994, a committee was formed to study the possibility of reviving the CCHP in order to give all the colleges the opportunity to once again collaborate with one another in the field. Several efforts were made in order to achieve this.

In November 2006, when the term of Dr. Ramon Arcadio as Chancellor started, the revival of the CCHP was given top priority. Chancellor Arcadio formed a committee made up of faculty members involved in community health and development from the different colleges to look for a common site for all the rural community rotations. The committee met with several local government units. The committee members conducted site visits to several towns in Batangas and to a Faith-Based Organization in Cavite. The Municipality of San Juan, Batangas was selected as the common site.

For this new engagement, Chancellor Arcadio formed the UP Manila Community Health and Development Program (UP CHDP) and it was composed of the colleges and faculty which made up the selection committee for the common site. The UP CHDP was formed in September 2007. Among its first activities was the formal launch of the San Juan, Batangas-University of the Philippines Manila Community-Based Partnership Program through a parade led by San Juan Mayor Rodolfo Manalo and UP Manila Chancellor Ramon Arcadio.

Since 2007, the UP CHDP has worked with the following Local Government Units: Municipality of San Juan, Batangas (2007-2013); the Province of Cavite and the five Municipalities of the AMIGA Inter-LGU Health Collaboration Council: Alfonso, Mendez, Indang, General Emilio Aguinaldo, Amadeo (2013-2021); and the Province of Cavite and the four Municipalities of the MAGNAMARTE Inter-Local Health Zone: Magallanes, Naic, Maragondon, Ternate (2022-2026). The current Memorandum of Agreement is from January 2022 to December 2026.

Mission
The UP CHDP promotes participatory socioeconomic, political and cultural development, in which health is included, with the community, utilizing the Primary Health Care Approach.* The program also provides reality-based and interdisciplinary community field experiences that can help students internalize their roles in nation building.

*The major principles of the Primary Health Care Approach from the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration are as follows:

1. Health is a basic human right.
2. People have the right and duty to participate in all stages of programs that affect them.
3. Health is multi-factorial and therefore interventions must be comprehensive to include both health and social measures that address social determinants of health.
4. The government has the responsibility for the provision of social services.
5. Services must be appropriate, effective, accessible, available, affordable, acceptable, and empowering.

Vision
An academic community imbued with social responsibility, professionalism, compassion, and sense of nationalism, facilitating socioeconomic, political and cultural development in partnership with the Filipino people.

The following are the academic partners of the UP CHDP as of Academic Year 2024-2025:

1. College of Allied Medical Professions
2. College of Arts and Sciences – Behavioral Sciences
3. College of Arts and Sciences – Development Studies
4. College of Dentistry
5. College of Home Economics (UP Diliman)
6. College of Human Kinetics (UP Diliman)
7. College of Medicine
8. College of Nursing
9. College of Pharmacy
10. College of Public Health
11. College of Social Work and Community Development (UP Diliman)
12. National Teachers Training Center for the Health Professions
13. PGH-Department of Family & Community Medicine
14. PGH-Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine

The UP CHDP is the lead unit of UP in the Cavite-MAGNAMARTE-UP Community-Based Partnership Program. Within this Partnership Program, the UP CHDP provides two types of services or programs:

1. Public Service
The UP CHDP engages the community partners, in collaboration with the 14 academic partners, towards the achievement of the public service goals. For the current partnership program with the Province of Cavite and the four Municipalities of Magallanes, Naic, Maragondon, Ternate, the communities and the university jointly formulated the following overall goals of the Partnership Program after a 2-day workshop in June 2022: (a) Systems strengthening for better service delivery, (b) Empowering engagement between community leaders and members, © increased community competence to assist the community in managing their own health and development programs and projects.

These are some of the programs and projects where the 4 towns and the UP CHDP (with the 14 academic partners) are working together for the development, implementation and monitoring of numerous initiatives (as of December 2025):

2. Academic Services Cavite, the four MAGNAMARTE Municipalities, and the UP CHDP work together in the spirit of genuine participation and through empowering approaches for the development, implementation, and monitoring of the public service programs and projects as described above. These programs and projects provide context in which the courses of the academic partners are implemented. Such a set-up enables the faculty and students of the academic partners to implement their curricular requirements towards the attainment of the public service goals of the Partnership Program. This enables the curricular activities to be relevant and not as the mere accomplishment of requirements for the satisfactory completion of a course. The curricular activities contribute to the attainment of the objectives of the projects and programs listed above and thereby advance the attainment of the three overall goals.