A twin four-story College of Law (COL) building will soon rise within the main campus of West Visayas State University (WVSU) in La Paz, Iloilo City.

WVSU recently held a groundbreaking ceremony to signal the start of the construction of the P800-million state-of-the-art building with a total floor area of 3,456 square meters or 864 square meters per floor.

Funded under the General Appropriations Act of 2024, the smart building will be equipped with a key card access system, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, Wi-Fi, solar panels, and two elevators.

It will also have fully air-conditioned classrooms, two moot courtrooms, an auditorium/multi-purpose room, an arbitration/training room, a review room, a legal clinic, and a library.

The façade of the building will be integrated with the design elements of WVSU’s Quezon Hall, to give value to the university’s most notable and oldest building.

WVSU president Joselito Villaruz thanked First Lady Louise “Liza” Araneta-Marcos, a part-time faculty member at the university’s College of Law, and others who took part in the realization of the building.


“For the past years, we have had no capital outlay insertion in the budget… And for the first time, she (Marcos) facilitated the insertion of P400 million for the COL building with the help of Speaker Martin Romualdez,” he said.

“And just this year for the 2024 budget we have another 400 million insertion for the package 2 of the building. So, there will be two buildings that will be built for the COL,” Villaruz added.

WVSU opened its law school in 2020. It is the first and only state university in Western Visayas that offers a legal education program.

“At the height of the pandemic when most schools were closing their doors, our university took a leap of faith by opening its juris doctor program. As the only state university offering a legal education program in Western Visayas, we embark on a journey that has surpassed our initial vision,” said Villaruz.


The COL building project will be implemented by the Department of Public Works and Hingways (DPWH-6).

Engineer Sanny Boy Oropel, DPWH-6 officer-in-charge director, said the project is to be completed within 458 calendar days.IMT