Ateneo de Manila University

The Ateneo has adopted the colors of Our Lady as its own school colors. The school colors are therefore signs of the Ateneo’s devotion to Mary and its commitment to become, like her, a constantly true and faithful servant of the Lord.

Marian blue, ultramarine, is the purest, most brilliant, and most enduring of blues. It is also the rarest and most expensive of pigments and exceeds gold in value. The color must be extracted in tiny amounts from crushed lapis lazuli, a gem. Medieval artists, therefore, reserved blue for the robes of the Virgin and the Child Jesus. Mary is also Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, and appropriately, her color is also the color of sky and water. Sky blue symbolizes distance, divinity, and dreams; Marine blue, mystery, depth, intimacy. In Mary’s blue mantle, Heaven and Earth, depth and height, the divine and the human come together. No wonder then that blue is the color of faith, peace, and commitment. No wonder then, that the Ateneo has made her Lady’s blue its own.

White is also a color of Mary, conceived without sin and clothed with the sun. It is at once colorless and yet bears the entire spectrum of color. White signifies silence, emptiness, and space that is pregnant with possibility. It is also the color of openness, truth, purity, and hope. In a sense, white is the color of ‘yes’. And it is a color of the Ateneo, because, like Mary, we hope to surrender ourselves to God, so that He may do His work through ours, and so that His will may be made flesh in our lives.

University of the Philippines

The University of the Philippines is a state university system in the Philippines and is the country's national university. Founded by the American colonial government on June 18, 1908, for the Filipinos, it was established through the ratification of Act No. 1870 of the 1st Philippine Legislature to provide "advanced instruction in literature, philosophy, the sciences and arts, and to give professional and technical training" to eligible students regardless of "age, sex, nationality, religious belief, and political affiliation".ja UP has institutional autonomy as the country's national university as mandated by Republic Act No. 9500 (UP Charter of 2008). The University of the Philippines remains the top university in the country, according to the latest QS World University Rankings, after its ranking improved to 367th this year from 374th in 2016.

The University of the Philippines has four institutional colors. The first two colors are based on ART 466. The 2005 Revised Code of the University of the Philippines System. These are Maroon is the Primary color of the University, and Forest green which is its complementary color. The next two colors are Gold which is applicable only as an accent color and provides definition to the details and main sections of the Seal. Spot Black which is used for the logotype. Addition or introduction of other supplementary colors is not permitted in order to preserve the identity of the University.