FOLLOWING THE HOLY WEEK break last April 1, teachers from the General Education Department (GED) of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) were met with drenched paperwork and fallen debris of plywood scraps, damaging their documents, students’ outputs, and personal bearings in the CAS faculty.
According to Asst. Prof. Gerard Santos, President of the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Association (CASFA), he recounted how the “sporadic” water leakage was already seen before five in the morning, affecting certain areas of the faculty with some of the cubicles even dented. As such, Prof. Santos posits that the damage would not have been so severe if the leak had occurred in less than 24 hours—further asserting that the leakage may have begun on a weekend. In addition, Prof. Santos also contended that the damage was not accounted for in due time because of the lack of maintenance personnel due to the Holy Week break.
The initial notice of a water leakage was reported on April 1 among the faculty members—resulting in their “shock” as they were also checking the midterm requirements of the students. Consequently, Prof. Santos wrote a report before the Office of the Vice President for Administration to fix the leakage and damages, considering how “it won’t be conducive for the faculty to do their work kung gan’on siya.”
Facing the brunt of the damages was Asst. Prof. Catalina Tiu, whose papers and specifically the cartolina group works of her students in Philippine Pop Culture, were soaked in water. When asked about her recourse for the damaged assignments, Prof. Tiu simply stated that she gave all her students “full points” in the activity for the effort that they, nevertheless, exerted.
“I saw the papers, the cartolina group works of my students in Philippine pop culture. They were all so wet with water damage and it’s brownish so of course I was thinking what kind of water is that? Is that sewer water or is that some damage?” said Prof. Tiu, further elaborating in detail that she could not retrieve the drenched project anymore.
Prof. Santos noted that this was the first time a water leakage had occurred in the CAS faculty during his tenure. While he acknowledged the inevitability of accidents, the CASFA President, nonetheless, raised another question: “[na] kailangan bang umabot dun sa point na…medyo severe na ‘yung effects?” pointing out why the issue was not attended accordingly.
Prof. Tiu then further cited the necessity of a secretary to whom the faculty can relay their concerns to, saying “I just wish the school would just keep the maintenance strong and active because as a faculty of the CAS, we don’t have a secretary, no one to, nothing, look at the damages, in the first place, we need a secretary.”
Coinciding with this, Mr. Santos recommended for the proper monitoring of the facilities in San Beda University (SBU), saying “naayos nanaman siya, pero siyempre siguro ang recommendation natin is, kasi luma na rin ‘yung faculty room, kailangan talagang imonitor, hindi lang ‘yung faculty room eh, [pero] lahat ng facilities.”
“Accidents happen, yes, pero ako naniniwala ako na may ways naman para maiwasan din ‘yan,” said Mr. Santos, asserting to consider the avenues to prevent such an incident and hoping that this will not happen again in the future.