Toughening out in life: The UP Narra dorm experience

Last Sunday, July 6, I attended a reunion of former residents of UP Narra Residence Hall (Nareha) hosted by UP president Jijil Jimenez at the Executive House.

- BIENVENIDO S. OPLAS JR.

Narra was the only all-boys dormitory in UP Diliman; the other dorms are co-ed or all-girls, and Jijil himself was a Narra resident in his undergraduate days.

I stayed in Narra dorm from 1983-1985; my first batch of roommates were all engineering majors, all classmates from Philippine Science High School. When they graduated, my second batch of roommates were my friends from UP Sapul, political science and math majors.

Our room was near the famous "Lean Alejandro room," just a few doors away. Intelligent, articulate and brave student leader Lean Alejandro and his roommates Sarge Colambo, Jojo Abinales and Alvin Batalla were kind people who would welcome gate crashers in their room so long as we knock first, then engage us in any discussion from politics to history, economics, natural sciences, to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.

Two of my engineering roommates were fratmen. When they have a rumble against another fraternity, my roommates asked me to allow their other brods to stay in our room as a holding area. I saw plenty of weapons except guns—baseball bats, steel chains, lead pipes, chaku, small knives, etc. Around 15 boys in our room, they allowed me to see their armaments as compromise for my permission that they hold out in our room. I think none of those weapons were used because the next day, the rumble is over. Until the next semester rumble/s.