Baker Hall II

During the 1980's the majority of the UPLB football team were from
Iloilo. And there were several who used Baker Hall as their dorm.
Until now, I'm not sure why they resided there. Since there was no
real kitchen facility, these football players cooked over an open fire
at the back of the building.

The buildings normally had no 24-hour security personnel standing
guard, and the University Security Force (part of the Philippine
National Police) drove around the campus and randomly pointing their
searchlight wherever they fancy. I don't know if that did anyone any
good. It was supposed to be a deterrent. There was not much crime
inside the campus. There were still several deaths but these are not
usually due to crimes.

Because of this, it was quite common to do some midnight swimming at
the Baker Hall. We'd just climb the fence of the swimming pool strip
down to our suits or shorts and frolic in the pool. Even if we went
midnight swimming with the girls, there was rarely any fooling around.
Swimming at Baker Hall in the middle of the night was crazy enough.
I don't know how to swim. I can almost float, and I know I can sink.
I can stay long enough under water and try to swim. But that is as
far as I can go. Nobody really dove into the pool, we'd wade in to
the water and those who cared to swam laps. While the others (me
included) would play around, diving between legs, or laze and float on
their backs. Normal do-nothing play-around stuff you'd do in the
water.

--andoy