UPFC Burned Down on April Fool’s Day

UP Faculty Center during the early morning hellish moments [Photo courtesy of Rappler.com]

Learning that the UP Faculty Center burned down to ashes today pained me. I walked down its corridors countless times for many years even after the death of my brother Prof. Isagani R. Medina of the History Department who occupied Rm. 2020. Our Humanities Classes were held at Palma Hall but I worked and had great time with several friends from the UP CSSP and CAL Faculty until recently. I was there last February to meet Dr. Apo Chua and Dr. Ruby Alcantara who were part of my team on Project Apolinario Mabini.

I could easily emphatize with all the fire victims.  Six years before my brother passed away in 2004, we ourselves lost our house and everything in it to a fire, including the research materials for the history book my brother and I were then working on, and my own researches and materials on Vicente Salumbides, a film producer in the 20’s, and Atang de la Rama. [In fact, one of my brother’s books was launched at the UPFC garden under the auspices of CSSP.]

It is difficult to find words to describe how I feel … “panlulumo” is the closest I could think of.

It was no joke to lose everything. But as a consequence, it made me gained Courage to rise above the loss. My faith in God became stronger, and I was so full of gratitude to realize that I was not quite attached to things I possessed, [except perhaps for irretrievable family pictures and research works!!! But I have learned to let go of them anyway. I had to. Otherwise, I’d wallow in self-pity perhaps, and waste my time crying for things that can never be replicated after all]. Though the material loss was great, I did not cry then or shed a single tear because everyone in the family were spared — my then disabled brother, my octogenarian mother, and my child. In an event like this, the lives of our loved ones matter more than anything else.

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