Fire breaks out in UP DIliman Alumni Center; fifth fire incident in seven years
A fire ravaged University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman’s Alumni Center late Tuesday night.
The aging single-storey structure, which is beside the UP Bahay ng Alumni, houses the university’s duck pin bowling alley used during physical education classes.
According to eye witness Nico Berba (Twitter handle @dat_morenokid), those residing in the alumni hostel, including varsity players, were asked to temporarily leave the building. He added that the fire ended around 12:35 AM, with no casualties.
This comes less than three weeks after a huge fire engulfed the famed CASAA/College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association Food Center last June 13. All in all, this is already the fifth major fire incident inside the UP Diliman campus in the past seven years.
It can be recalled that a fire gutted the Narra Residence Hall back in January 2008 while the Chemistry Pavilion in Palma Hall suffered the same fate in June 2010. Both structures have not been rebuilt. Even Quezon Hall, the university’s administration building, was hit by fire August 2010.
Despite taking pride in being the flagship campus of the Philippines’ national university, the electric wiring in most buildings in UP Diliman are poorly-maintained, particularly in structures first built during the 1950s and 1960s.
And, as revealed in a 2010 investigative report by Kim Arveen Patria and Fidel Maximo Diego, the UP Diliman administration has not exactly been cooperative with Quezon City fire officials, citing the institution’s autonomous status.
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