Saturday, April 2, 2016

The Aftermath



This post is not really travel, per se, but it's a bit of traveling back in time. I, with my friend James, went to take some drone photos of the University of the Philippines Faculty Center, which was gutted by a fire on April 1. Fortunately the guard and the building administrator gave us their permission to fly the drone from a road adjacent to the building. I promised the admin I'd send him copies of the photos, which he said could be useful in the investigation.




The building, colloquially called FC by the students and staff, is one of the places in the university that is memorable to me. I used to work there as a student assistant when I was in college (Department of History). Almost all of my History professors hold offices there too, as well as my European Languages and social sciences professors. Almost all of my class cards, with good grades and bad, I claim them in FC. I spend a lot of time in FC in every enrollment period, waiting for the profs to give me a slot in the classes. 




The building is very important to the university too. It houses several departments, including History, Anthropology, Philosophy, European Languages, and Linguistics (you'd think Indiana Jones lives here with that amount of scholarship in a small building). I heard from my prof, and from our former department admin assistant, Ate Vicky, that a lot of manuscripts, rare books, thesis and dissertations, and student records were lost in the fire, which really was more tragic than just losing the building itself.




Hopefully the University can build back better, and the academic community that has been nurtured by this building can bounce back. 





Here's a video too: 

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for these pics. My former office was at the anthro dept at the thord floor and I could see where it was - inner face of the courtyard on the right, specifically the right western side.

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  2. As a U.P. alumnus as well, I, too, have a lot of memories about this building. Just curious, what drone model are you flying and what camera is attached to it? TIA

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  3. Third fire incident in the last ten months.

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  4. I am Mary Jandusay, a student from UPD. I am currently taking up Art Studies 195 (Curatorship) under Dr. Cecilia de la Paz. As part of our requirements for the course, our class was tasked to create an exhibit applying all of the lessons we have learned during the semester. With the impact the Faculty Center fire had on the entire University, we have decided to create an exhibit about the Faculty Center and the spirit it embodied. Our exhibit is entitled Recovering FC: Space and Memory and will be held from May 3 to 18, 2016 at the Bulwagan ng Dangal University Heritage Museum.

    In line with this, we would like to request permission to use your drone footage and photographs from your Facebook page in one of our installations for the exhibit. We believe your material would be an essential addition to the exhibit and the message it intends to convey. The video footage and photographs shall be fully attributed to you as its creator and you shall be acknowledged in the event's souvenir program and other promotional materials.
    If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me at 09154597433/ mmjandusay@up.edu.ph Thank you very much and we look forward to hearing from you.

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