[OPINION] The scope of loss: 5 years after the UP Faculty Center fire Apr 1, 2021 10:15 PM PHT Jonathan Victor Baldoza The news erupted sometime after midnight. Though my tasks for the night remained unfinished, I was glued to my social media feeds as they generated an avalanche of updates. Once it was verified that the reports were neither fake nor part of a cruel April Fools’ prank, that there was indeed a fire and it was in fact the FC being razed to the ground, I felt an anguish and panic that only kept worsening as the incident went on. While the FC was no paradise – with its terrible indoor lighting, poor ventilation, cramped spaces, and dilapidated facilities – it was, nevertheless, to professors and to many of their students, a home in many ways, an intimate bazaar in the greater marketplace of ideas, a welcoming shelter for the inquisitive mind.