(Author’s note: The account is personal and limited to my recollection. This is a work in progress and everyone is enjoined to correct facts and share their memories that transpired in the UP Baguio Campus that we all love.)

It was a bright and pleasantly cold morning when I first set-foot as a freshman in UP Baguio. UP Baguio was welcoming. The oblation ground was immaculately green, the weather was at its best in June, the campus was conveniently small, and the queue during the enrollment was short.

UP Baguio in that morning of June 1985 remained the same until mid-1990s, when the terrible killer earthquake struck Baguio City in July 16. To this day, the lobby remains where it was, right at the center of UP Baguio’s main building. It used to be smaller and unassuming. The floor was made of a cement finish, a far cry from today’s marble flooring and “semi-alfresco” architecture. But the lobby of old was the place where almost all those who came from UP Baguio had a special memory. It was the place for the celebration of the Linggo ng Wika, photo and art exhibits, memorial services, food sales, and militant campaigns.

Depending on the month of the year, a banner will find its way at the canopy in front welcoming freshmen, denouncing another round of tuition increase, and many more announcements. In the month of December, the lobby is bedecked with the lanterns and parols from the contest of the Pasiklaban.

The lobby was also a comfort zone: a stalking area, dating area, getting to know you area, depository of bags and books, neutral tambayan for most, a puke area (there used to be an ornamental bamboo plant growing beside the front wall of the old library where we comfort ourselves after having too many beers) and of course, the place where the latest gossip of UP Baguio was propagated. The white station wagon, the official service vehicle of the Dean, was parked at the corner of the lobby and the hallway fronting the Sec’s Office (where the Bougainvillea still flourish to this day).

But more than these, the lobby represented the seat of power of “unofficial” acceptance into the UP Baguio studentry. It may be welcoming to almost all students of political and social color but the lobby is strictly off-limits to freshmen, especially when such greenhorns are “barbarians”. For one, it was a mortal sin for a freshman to spend his free time at the part of the lobby facing the oblation grounds.

At the center of the lobby was the Dean’s office. The interior of the office was painted in pink. As to why the color pink, the reason was never really established. But it was always a source of interesting rumors. In fact, Outcrop lampooned the color of the office in its issues countless times.

Manong Terry also held office there together with a lady with curly hair who later was transferred to the Sec’s Office and became the wife of Manong Rudy, the ever helpful handyman-cum-janitor-cum-muscle man of the Spear Hall.

The conference room was adjacent to the Dean’s office. This was the place where disputes were articulated and resolved, and where elected student council representatives were inducted. Facing the old Dean’s office, the wooden stairs to your left leads to the offices of the humanities and social sciences division.

The Sec’s Office (Secretary’s Office) was to your right if you were walking towards the lobby. Until today, the office symbolizes academic tribulation to me.

Depending on the verdict read to you by the then College Secretary, after patiently lining-up to her office during enrollment, pink-slip in hand, you either come out an ex-UP Baguio student, on first probation or last probation. “Anti-academic” as it may sound, a true-blue Upian should bear the scars of academic war, at least a 4 that is not removable.

If you get the walking papers from the university, you are immortalized as an academic martyr. Yours truly lined-up there twice, the first was on-behalf of a close friend (because he was busy attending a congress against the Marcos Regime in Cebu), and the other was because in my third year, I only passed one subject.

As a consequence, in my fourth year (there was already a fifth, sixth and 7th year for a four-year course back then), I was on last probation and forced to pass all my enrolled courses for the year. But the Sec’s Office was where people I sorely miss also worked: Manang Nani Mejia, Manang Violy, Manang Julie, Manang Amy and Manang Pen.

The old library, its first and second floors, was to your right facing the former Dean’s Office. It served as a discreet dating area and an escape route from teachers in the hunt for students who were always absent. The “escape hatch” was a door in the second floor of the library that opens to the offices of the humanities and social sciences divisions.

The hallway in between the old library and the former Dean’s Office leads to where Prof. Delfin Tolentino holds office (PIPO) and eventually (straight ahead) to the UP Palaris tambayan, “kissing park”, (to your right) EKITT tambayan, clinic, accounting and cashier’s offices, graduate school building, the upper, lower and lowest canteens.

The upper canteen housed the tambayans (to your left as you enter) of Pi Sigma/Delta, APO, Chi Kappa Epsilon, and Scintilla Juris/Astrum Scientis and UP Ladaoan while the lower canteen housed the tambayan of Anak-UP, Tau Gamma Triskelions and the Student Council Office. The upper canteen and I am quite certain the lower canteen, too, was a refuge for most of us from the cold and wetness of the monsoon rains during the months of July to November.

During these times, Jun Fabian (of APO) would pass around a shot of gin (Markang Demonyo by Ginebra) to all who were at their tambayan and we would all have a good time getting intoxicated. Of course, there was also the lowest canteen, located a few steps away from the other side of the upper and lower canteens, where Mommy of Hillside (of the batch of the hillside boys that I knew – Richard Salvador, Alex Dulay, Enrico, Ernie, etc.) was the owner.

From the back of Sir Delfin Tolentino’s office and facing the UP Palaris tambayan, you turn left to head to the auditorium, the Luna Hall. The auditorium, as we never really referred to it as “Luna Hall”, housed the many memorable events of those times: Freshman Orientations, Skit Nayts, Himigsikans, Saniwengs, Tabak stage plays, Kabute stage plays, Recognition Days, Book Sales, and the Miting d Avances.

Facing the auditorium, you turn left and right down the stairs to the 20s. Right at the corner of the hallway leading to the 20s is the tambayan (the stairs) of Tumbleweeds, Beta Sigma and the Corps of Sponsors.

Right beside the tambayan of the Beta Sigma was the old office of the Outcrop. The office holds poignant memories to me. It is a hallowed ground. I started learning here how to be a writer and how to fall in love to a heartthrob who will never give back what I sought. This was a place where the present Chancellor of UP Baguio, two incumbent Deans, countless professors and famous journalists started to dabble with words. At the back of the Outcrop office is the office of the UP Baguio Theatre Arts.

Turning left from that corner straight ahead leads you to the library of today and to your right the Vanguard office, the new office of the Outcrop, the old office of EAP and down to the stairs that lead to the UPCB high school.

From the Vanguard office, facing the new library, you turn left to the open air multi-purpose court and the bleachers. The multi-purpose court was a silent witness to the arduous practices of the basketball, volleyball and tennis teams, and the several intramural games contested here, including the skirmishes that usually ensue when the testosterones of the players got the better of them.

But usually, after every game, most players, win or lose, would head to Manong Efren’s canteen, Valdez Store or the store beside the police detachment and celebrate. The back part of the Convention Center was referred to as the UP Baguio annex, Manong Efren’s was the 2os, Valdez store was the Spear Hall and the store in front of the detachment was the 1os.

The 1os of the Madonna Era was pretty much the same, except for the addition of the building of the College of Human Kinetics today. The office of the Natural Sciences department was to your left coming from the ever enduring workstation of the “mani monopoly”, our very own Manang Mani.

From the Natural Sciences offices, you will turn right and straight ahead was the laboratory storeroom, and right again, you will negotiate the stairs down to the Spear Hall where the room to your right served as the only classroom for P.E. classes.

The hall housed the table tennis tables, the dance area and the office of SPEAR. If the table tennis tables are still around today, approximately six of them, and if you will check under the tables you may still be able to see our attempt at immortalizing our names by resorting to vandalism.

Spear Hall was also a silent witness to a lot of love stories among varsitarians that hang-out there. There was a door at the back of that only classroom that opens to (straight down) the archery range (now the multi-purpose court roofed building) and (to your left) a pathway that leads to the lower canteen.

Another door, at the far right corner of the hall goes straight out to the same pathway that leads to the lower canteen. The hallway that leads to the Spear Hall and to the Sec’s Office, including the rooms along the stairs, comprised the rooms of 1os. 1os also housed the office of the Council of Leaders, the computer office, the comfort rooms, and the laboratory stockroom. Along the walls were the bulletin boards of UPSCA, SVCF, Math-Physics Society, UP Baguio Taekwondo Club and other organizations.

At the back of the 10s, is the building for the Psychology and Physics laboratories and the office of a research institution. Beside this building is a big water tank which will play a funny role in the July 16 earthquake. There was a concrete pathway in front of the building that serves as a shortcut from one of the biology laboratories of the 10s to the upper canteen (another escape route).

The parking lot is another memorable place in UP Baguio. I was here, near the big pine tree, when the earthquake of July 1990 struck. But like the lobby, the parking lot also represented some sort of social acceptance or un-acceptance. Obviously, this was where most students with cars spend there free time. Pusoy owes some, if not most, of its history here.

And yes, this was also the place where most “teacher’s pets” congregate. From the parking lot, looking towards BREHA which later had a neighboring building naughtily referred to as the FAC House (Faculty House), one could almost see anything and anyone from the Convention Center (also referred to as the “Bottle Grounds where Ferdie Balanag celebrated his 19th birthday by drinking all the 19 beers lined-up for him and breaking them one by one), four pillars, pond, open multi-purpose court, bleachers, and the trails leading to the 1os, vanguard office, library and BREHA.

If you turn around, you will see the whole administration building, 1os and the shaded walk from the oblation ground where Manang Mani is stationed.

UP Baguio then, like the unconditional service and freedom that the oblation symbolizes, was a picture of harmony with the Baguio City landscape. There was no fence surrounding the campus perimeter. It was a sprawling system of small one storey buildings where people seldom wore summer clothes and English was spoken only in classrooms. Love and camaraderie, perhaps encouraged by the design of the campus, like the scent of pine, was all around us. The UP Baguio of 1985-1991 had almost no boundaries.