II. Accommodations – class days

A. Accommodations, Timeframes and Payments

1. The Collegio gives board & lodging accommodations to the following Priests:
a. Residents: They stay for the whole academic year or for one semester. Non-student priests may stay by special arrangement.
b. Guests: They stay three months or less, space permitting. Those who stay for ten days or less may avail of laundry service only with expressed approval from the Rector.

2. The Collegio financially relies principally on the board and lodging contributions from the students. Kindly turn them in at the start of the school year. If for any reason there is a delay, kindly inform the Economus at the start of the school year how and when you plan to pay. Payments may be made to the Economus, or in his absence, to the Rector. Rates and modes of payment:
a. All payments are best made in Euro. Those with US Dollars or other currencies are encouraged to kindly exchange them first to Euros elsewhere (not with the Collegio Procurator).
b. Accounts should be settled as soon as possible, not later than the end of the selected time frame. Residents supported by funding agencies are expected to submit their checks as soon as these arrive (normally around November and March). All should satisfactorily settle their accounts before leaving the Collegio definitively.
c. Collegio Priests pay the following rates (note: the Philippine Bishops commit themselves to subsidize the Collegio, hence, non-Filipinos are asked a corresponding additional contribution):
i. Annual (October to June): €7,200 (€8,100 for non-Filipinos).
ii. Semestral (October to mid-February, or mid-February to June): €3,600 (€4,050 for non-Filipinos).
iii. One day: €40 with complimentary breakfast, lunch and dinner. They should kindly inform the Economus or the Rector one day before if they intend to eat lunch and/or dinner at the Collegio. (Note: the daily recommended donation for non-Collegio priests is €50.)

3. Rates for these timeframes factor in all school breaks (Christmas, semestral, Easter, long weekends, personal options, etc.), for which no discounts are given when the Priest is away, since the rooms concerned remain reserved during those periods.

4. The board and lodging fees cover your room (not the corridors outside your rooms) and meals (snacks not included but may be provided), from October to June (9 months) or by semester (October to mid-February, and mid-February to June). Room transfers are not allowed, except for special reasons to be determined by the Administrators.

5. The phones in our rooms can receive calls passed from the Portineria. They also function as intercoms by directly dialing the corresponding room number you wish to reach.

6. Unlike computers and printers which are considered as tools needed for studies, personal appliances such as televisions, microwaves, refrigerators, and the like are not covered by the board and lodging fees. Hence they will be charged additionally, as determined by the Procurator.

7. Some universities require the Collegios to pay the students’ tuition fees together. In this case, please submit your payments to our Economus; you are also responsible to remind the Economus of the deadlines, otherwise you will have to pay the fines for late payments. On the other hand, if there is no such requirement, kindly pay your tuition fees directly to the universities, following the procedures they indicate.

8. Please refrain from using short pants, pajamas, bathrobes, sleeveless shirts, as well as clothes for sports (except during sports period), when in the ground floor and basement areas, as well as in the upper floor corridors when there are guests, even at night. While the Collegio is our home where we should feel comfortable, it is at the same time a Pontifical institution, a showcase of the Catholic bishops- Conference of the Philippines, and semi-public, and once outside the privacy of our own rooms, we need to consider the different sensitivities of priests, sisters, staff and guests alike (e.g., for some, shorts and sleeveless in public might be acceptable, but for others not).

9. All should exert utmost effort to finish their studies on time, within the usual number of years to finish the program.
The Episcopal Commission shall periodically review and regulate the standard number of years the students may continue residing at the College on the occasion of their studies in Rome (Ordinances II, 6).
a. The “usual” duration refers not to the maximum allowed by the university, but rather, for the Licentiate, to the number of years the subjects may be finished assuming one takes the normal number of courses per semester (for example: 2 years for most of STL, 3 years for JCL, PhL, Communications, Biblical Theology, 4 years for SSL, etc.), and for the Doctorate, 2 or 3 years, depending on the program.
b. In general, students will be allowed to extend for a maximum of one more year beyond the usual duration of their course, unless special circumstances (health, some other urgent assignment from the Bishop, etc.) suggest a further extension (that is, an overstay). Every semester of such an overstay beyond one year requires a written approval from the Bishop and the Rector, and subject to room availability.
c. In case of room shortage (also considering that some rooms are allotted as guest rooms, and hence unavailable for student residents), applicants will have priority over those overstaying.

10. Your Bishops have entrusted your care to the Collegio Rector. To properly carry out this responsibility, the Rector has to know whenever a priest will be out overnight from the Collegio, which is his normal place of residence as determined by the Bishop.

Kindly email the Rector (not sms, written on paper, or social media, for easier reference) in advance the address where you will be staying, the contact person, and his or her celphone number, whenever you will be out of the Collegioovernight or longer. This way the Rector can still hopefully contact you, for example in emergencies, even if you yourself are unable to reply through the usual channels.
Kindly inform the Rector personally or via messaging just before leaving for or upon returning from such a trip – just as we take leave of our parents and siblings, and greet them when we return home, even though we had already informed them of our plans days earlier.

11. Sleep doctors recommend 8 straight hours of sleep, which is not the same, for example, as 6 hours of sleep in the night, and 2 in the afternoon. We enter into deep sleep after the fourth hour, so an 8-hour sleep provides us with 4 hours of deep sleep. On the other hand, 6 hours of sleep will provide us with only 2 hours of deep sleep, while the 2-hour sleep in the afternoon will not give us any deep sleep.

With enough sleep, we will manage to understand our lessons better, read and compose faster, and be more efficient in general. Working intensely 8 hours a day (just like lay professionals and workers) will be manageable. On the other hand, not enough sleep will make our body system work harder unnecessarily, decrease our attention span, and bring us health complications. Those with chronic health problems (heart, gastrointestinal tract, acid reflux, skin, kidneys, diabetes, asthma, etc.) should try their best to sleep 8 straight hours every night.
Lack of sleep also weakens our will power and affects our decision-making, including, for example, with regards to work and study patterns, priorities, food intake, etc. It will require us to waste extra hours trying to read or write a chapter, hours that we could have instead spent sleeping soundly. In this sense, it is better to sleep two extra hours, than to waste two extra hours trying to understand a lesson we could have understood quickly, if only we had slept well the night before…
Being faithful to our personal schedule will allow us to pray, study, interact with others, exercise, and do everything else we need to do, without sacrificing our rest and hours of sleep.

B. Care for Rooms and Facilities

1. You are provided with a night table by the bed, study table, chair, study lamp, towels, bed linens and crucifix. Please inform the Administrators immediately if you need anything else, or if something needs to be fixed or replaced. Kindly keep your things inside your rooms.

2. Since labor and materials to do repairs in Europe cost a lot, kindly take care not to scratch or damage the rooms’ surfaces, especially in moving furniture or luggage. Do not use nails, tacks, pins, tapes, etc. on any concrete, metal, wood, tile or other surfaces, whether in the bedroom or bathroom, as doing so will damage or scratch the surfaces, or leave adhesive substances that will accumulate dust difficult to remove. Electrical or water lines embedded in the walls might also be hit, causing short circuits or leaks.

3. Unlike with wooden walls back home, which do not easily get stained, our painted cement walls can easily be smeared and scratched. For example, please take care not to mark them with your shoes or sweat (from arms or back of shirt), or rub them with with your rag when cleaning your study table.

4. The doors have been intentionally left free of hooks, as their hinges tend to misalign if loaded. Besides, their surfaces have a special heat-treated lamination, and just to patch up scratches or nail or screw holes, they need to be brought to a laboratory, probably costing hundreds of Euros for labor and materials.

5. Please coordinate with the Rector before getting any item from other rooms, storage areas, or common areas.

6. When the student priest is out for weeks or months (for example, during summer), in which he does not pay, he is required to put his room in order before he takes such extended leave. This is not only for purposes of safety and repairs, but also to make the room available for Guests, who are entitled to a room they can call their own, with decent accommodations and without clutter, for which they make a donation.
a. Personal belongings should be placed in the upper cabinets, or in presentable baules (but not cardboard boxes, unless very presentable and clean). The lower part of the big cabinets, and the night tables, should be emptied.
b. The bathrooms, desktops, tops of bookshelves, and the room itself in general should be totally cleared. Book shelves should be presentable as well.
c. Other items not properly kept as indicated above shall be disposed of.

7. Kindly leave your keys with the Procurator or at the porter when you go for extended breaks.

8. The Collegio is not responsible for any items lost. Please note that Collegios are especially prone to break-ins by outsiders during summer, since they know that many leave. Hence, do not leave any valuables behind: documents, money, electronics, etc.

9. Residents are responsible for the furniture and fixtures in their respective rooms. Transferring said items from one room to another should be with prior permission from the Procurator or Rector, who will grant such permission only for valid reasons. Residents will be charged for the missing or destroyed furniture and fixtures upon their final departure from the Collegio.

10. Residents should kindly inform the Economus in writing of the repairs needed in their respective rooms or in any other area.

11. Residents are not to give out or lend any copy of any Collegio key to any other person, as doing so affects the whole Collegio’s security. Losing a key will require a change of locks and multiple copies of keys, all of which will be charged from the one who lost it.

12. The Collegio, like many other buildings nowadays, should be kept smoke-free indoors. Smokers may smoke instead on the third floor veranda (outside the corridor), the garage area, or outdoors.

C. On the Sisters and the Personnel

1. The Sisters have their own community program when it comes to prayers and meals, and other activities. These are made compatible with their assignment a the Collegio, and with their Generalate, on whom they depend.

As a Canonically constituted local community, the Sisters have an exclusive right to their own convent. This includes half of the left wing on the third floor, as well as their refectory beside the kitchen. Entrance to these areas require the permission of the Collegio Rector and the Sisters’ Superior.
Out of respect for the Sisters, any request made to them should be first cleared with the Collegio Administrators.

2. Even though in our previous assignments, we might have been directing many persons, here at the Collegio the services rendered by our lay personnel need to be coordinated by the Administrators.

Hence, and also out of respect for the lay personnel, some of whom might find it difficult to say no to priests, any request made to them should be first cleared with the Collegio Administrators. They have been instructed to this effect.
Similarly, out of respect for the privacy of the Personnel, their rooms below the Main Chapel Sacristy are off-limits to Residents. Kindly avoid stationing yourselves (prolonged conversations, eating, games, etc.) immediately outside their rooms as well, to assure them of maximum privacy.

3. The Sisters and the Personnel should likewise not station themselves in the Priests’ corridors or enter the Priests’ rooms, unless a specific task of theirs demands doing so.

D. On Visitors

1. Outside Pandemic situations, please feel free to invite guests to the Collegio for a visit, Mass or meals. We may entertain them at the Lobby area, snacks area or in the visitors’s parlor. Kindly refrain from chatting with your guests in the TV room, to allow others to watch a television program should they wish.

2. To maintain a space where we all could always be assured of peace and silence, necessary for our prayers, studies and rest, visitors are not allowed in the first to the third floors.
a. For special cases in which a visitor needs to go to a room (e.g., asking an outsider to help carry heavy things from the room, or fixing a printer), kindly have the courtesy of informing the Rector, or in his absence, any other Administrator.
b. If some outsiders wish to help a priest in some other task, please use the ground floor areas rather than one’s room.
c. Even non-Collegio priests (classmates, or those from one’s diocese) should normally not be brought upstairs. This is to assure other residents of their peace and quiet.
d. Ladies, including religious sisters, and minors, are strictly off limits to the priests’ rooms.

3. Under no circumstances may a minor or a lady visitor be brought to one’s bedroom, unless they are one’s mother or sibling (normally, not even first cousins or more distant relatives).