Massive fire guts UP Diliman Faculty Center – third fire incident in ten months
A massive fire ravaged the University of the Philippines Diliman Faculty Center (FC) early Friday morning.
Faculty members from the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (CAL) and the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) have their rooms in the FC. The offices of many academic departments are also inside the said three-storey structure, which is between the Palma Hall, CAL, and the Vargas Museum.
According to Facebook user Ken Wu, the fire broke out about 1AM and it took some time before firefighters came. As of writing time, the fire has now reached Task Force Alpha with about 50 firetrucks already in the area. Ironically, some netizens were at first hesitant to believe the report, thinking that it might be an April Fool’s Day prank.
This is now the third fire incident inside the UP Diliman campus in a span of only ten months. It can be remembered that in June of last year, a huge fire ravaged the famous CASAA or College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association Food Center. Three weeks after, a fire broke out in the UP Alumni Center. All in all, this is already the sixth time it happened in the last eight years.
ABS-CBN has reported on its Twitter page that nobody died or got injured because of the fire. However, what cannot be easily ascertained are the losses suffered by professors whose rooms are in the said building. For many of them, their office at the FC is like a second home already.
Judging from the photos taken, it appears that all rooms in the FC has been gutted. Just imagine how many student records, theses, term papers, exams, books, and other relevant items were lost because of the fire.
ADVISORY: No class suspension. There will still be classes later today, according to UPD Chancellor Michael Tan. | @phkule
— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) March 31, 2016
Against that context, UP Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan’s announcement that classes will go on as scheduled this April 1 is totally dumbfounding. Can’t professors from CAL and CSSP have a day at least to assess the magnitude of the loss they suffered because of the fire? And also, where will they be staying?
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