Girl, 12, saves 5 sisters from Quiapo fire

MANILA, Philippines - Jelyn Ronquillo, 12, was looking after her five sleeping sisters when she felt an intolerable amount of heat surrounding their shanty underneath Quiapo Bridge in Manila yesterday morning.

Their father, Jeff, had gone to work and their mother, Weng, went out to buy food for their breakfast at around 8 a.m.

When she looked out the window, Jelyn saw smoke billowing from shanties above theirs. “It was so hot. It felt like an inferno,” she said in Filipino when she was interviewed at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center, where she and her sisters were taken for treatment of burns they suffered.

She roused her next oldest siblings – Angela, 10, and Angel, 7 – and told them they would have to jump into the river next to their shanty.

Angel grabbed their eight-month-old sister, Salvacion as their three-year-old sister, Princess, started to cry. Four-year-old Sandra woke up because of the searing heat.

“I told Angel to jump. She brought Princess and Sandra with her. I remained behind because Angela was crying and refused to jump,” Jelyn said, adding that she thought Angela may have been scared or confused.

She said Salvacion laughed as her sisters struggled, thinking they were playing. Her sisters had jumped but left Salvacion with her, Jelyn said.

The flames were burning their skin by the time Jelyn had convinced Angela to jump by telling her she “still wants to see Mama.”

Jelyn said she was confident that she and her siblings would be saved because a member of the Philippine Coast Guard was outside their window – all they needed to do was get out of their burning shanty.

“It happened so fast. Everything happened in about a minute,” she said.

Jelyn, Angela and Salvacion were the only casualties in the fire, officials said.

Checking bridge structure

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) advised heavy vehicles against passing through Quezon Bridge after a fire destroyed around 50 shanties underneath the bridge.

In an advisory released yesterday afternoon, DPWH National Capital Region director Reynaldo Tagudando assured the public that they have begun to check the bridge’s structural integrity.

He said only light vehicles are allowed to cross the bridge pending their investigation.

Toddler dies in QC blaze

On the other hand, a one-year-old girl died in the fire that left around 60 families homeless in Quezon City yesterday afternoon.

Charlotte Margot dela Cruz was sleeping when a fire broke out in a shantytown in Barangay Bagbag, Novaliches at around 3:25 p.m., Quezon City fire district head  Chief Superintendent Jesus Fernandez said.

He said the victim’s father, Marlon, was at work while her mother, Clarissa, went to the public market. The toddler was left in the care of her older siblings, reportedly aged 14, 10, 5 and 4, Fernandez said. The other siblings survived the blaze.

Fernandez said the fire reached second alarm before it was put out at around 4:20 p.m. – With Janvic Mateo