City Council to declare state of calamity for scene of fire

CEBU, Philippines – A state of calamity will be declared on the areas of barangays San Antonio and Santa Cruz that have been affected by the late afternoon fire the other day.

A total of 28 houses were burned in the blaze, which took the firemen a little over an hour to control.

City Disaster Coordinating Council head Councilor Gerardo Carillo said a resolution declaring the areas affected by fire under state of calamity has already been drafted and is scheduled to be tackled in next week’s session of the Cebu City Council.

He said the declaration will enable the city government to access its calamity funds to provide assistance to the fire victims.

The damage estimate for the fire has been pegged at P12.5 million. 

Most of the structures affected were apartments, lodging houses, stores and eateries.

A total of nine houses were razed in San Antonio and 19 in Santa Cruz.

The fire victims are temporarily staying at the barangay halls, the gym of nearby barangay Cogon-Ramos and the Cebu City Sports Center.

Social workers from the Cebu City Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) will provide them with food for three days.

At the end of three days, Carillo said they will be given take home provisions for one week that shall include food, kitchen utensils and several bedding materials.

Carillo said CCDCC will immediately draft another resolution for the immediate repair of the suction equipment, which would have enabled the fire trucks to refill their tanks from the water of the pool at the Cebu City Sports Center instead of driving further to the hydrants.

Fire hydrants in the entire city will also be checked to make sure that these are still functioning. Two fire hydrants in the vicinity of the fire scene were found to be dry.

Carillo said that Cebu City North District Rep. Raul del Mar is giving P1,000 to each of the identified victims.

SFO4 Allan Arciaga, chief investigator of the fire department said, they will be inviting a certain Lilian Du, who reportedly saw the fire when it started in the house of Angelo Alo.

Arciaga said Du could give an account on how the fire started. She lives just three houses away from that of alo.

Based on initial investigation, the fire reportedly started at the ceiling of the second floor of the house of Alo.

Rama’s order

Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, who visited the area twice yesterday, said he ordered the immediate restoration of lights in the area to prevent the looting of housing materials that can still be salvaged by the owners.

He also wants the status of the properties checked.

Rama said he would want to have the fire and emergency brigades activated considering that much could have been saved if the barangays were equipped to deal with such catastrophe.

The fire broke at 5:44 p.m. and was declared under control at 6:55 p.m. What hampered the movement of the firefighters were the narrow roads and the kibitzers, who gathered on the roads and also hampered the entry of the trucks.

Cause of fire

The Bureau Fire Protection believes that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit.

BFP Supt. Esmael Codilla said that initial investigation showed the fire was caused by electrical short circuit “probably because the origin of the fire was lately renovated.”

However, Codilla stated that this is yet to be concluded since they still have to make further investigation and this usually take a few days before a final assessment could be given.

Codilla said that since investigation is till going on, “people should not be allowed to get in the fire origin kay basin naay ma-tamper.”

Sta Cruz Barangay Captain Jerome Lim said that they are still thankful that nobody was hurt or killed in the blaze.

Some of the long-time residents of the area however find it very difficult to cope with the loss.

One of them is Peter Kwek, who lived in a house that was built way back in 1942.

Kwek, who was not at home during the fire, said that they failed to save even one piece of clothing.

Kwek shared that he just arrived from the United States in December and is scheduled to go back by June since he is already an immigrant but plans may have to change since his papers and passport were burned.

Kwek stated that they hope the financial assistance would be given so that they could start rebuilding the house in the same area.—with AJ de la Torre/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)