Tragedy

When we come across the phrase "senseless death" we always ask if there is a sensible demise. Still, some deaths seem more senseless than others. This is true especially in the case of the very young who die through violence or by accident.

We can only condole with Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and his wife Gina for the loss of their 16-year-old daughter KC in a fire. Parents are not supposed to bury their children, and this is supposed to be a season of great joy. Instead the Speaker and his wife face profound grief.

In the face of this awful tragedy we grope for something good that might come out. Perhaps we will finally see the modernization of the nation’s fire-fighting capability. Perhaps there will be regulation of the entry of dirt-cheap but substandard Christmas lights from abroad, which not only cause fires but are killing local competition.

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There were initial reports that De Venecia, in his desperation to save his daughter, had used pails of water in an effort to douse the flames eating up the main stairway in his house.

Many people believed the story, which turned out to be false (the Speaker had grabbed a firefighter’s hose), because Filipinos have seen too many such scenes in previous fires. For lack of fire-fighting equipment and even firefighters, people use buckets to get water from fire hydrants to put out a blaze spreading through their neighborhood.

The city of Makati, which is home to most of the nation’s priciest pieces of real estate, has the most modern fire-fighting equipment in this country. The city’s firefighters did stop the blaze from spreading beyond the second floor of De Venecia’s sprawling home. Yet even Makati can use upgrading of its fire-fighting equipment.

Elsewhere in the country the situation is markedly different. Even in Metro Manila, some fire stations lack functioning fire trucks. The trucks are there, but the stations lack funds to get the vehicles running again and keep them properly maintained. It’s not unusual to hear fire victims complain that fire trucks parked just a few blocks away never responded to a fire alarm.

Conditions are even more dismal in fire stations outside Metro Manila. Our firefighters lack not just trucks but also ladders and fire-retardant apparel. They lack equipment to break down walls, doors, and yes, windows so they can rescue those trapped by flames and smoke.

Reports said KC was found in her brother’s bathroom, wrapped in a wet blanket to keep out the noxious smoke. It was not enough; she died of suffocation. In August 2001 a similar fate befell about 70 people staying at the Manor Hotel in Quezon City. The fire caused minimal damage to the six-story budget hotel, but the fumes proved deadly. Most of the fatalities – participants in an evangelical gathering – were found huddled in bathrooms, untouched by flames.

Those victims at the Manor Hotel were also trapped by window grills and blocked fire exits. The death of KC de Venecia has ignited debates on the wisdom of fortifying homes with grills. Those against point out that burglars and rapists break in through doors anyway. The counter-argument is that this is so because windows have grills, which are a necessity in this land of the "Akyat-Bahay" and "Bolt Cutter" gangs.

De Venecia, still thinking straight even in his hour of deep mourning, said firefighters could use modern equipment to destroy window grills.

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In the face of tragedy we focus on little things, ordinary things that remind us of normalcy, such as Christmas lights. But then the tragedy intrudes and we worry: How safe are our Christmas lights?

From KC’s wake we passed by Magnolia street in Dasmariñas Village Friday night. The most noticeable thing was that all Christmas lights were off along the street. Perhaps it was the neighbors’ way of commiserating with the De Venecias. Perhaps it was because it was midnight.

Or perhaps people were spooked by warnings about the quality of Christmas lights in their homes. I know a number of people who didn’t switch on their Christmas lights that night, or left the lights on briefly.

We never worried about the safety of those lights. All along we thought they got cheaper over the years because of the economics of mass production and the lifting of restrictions on global trade. Few people care about durability; the cheaper the lights are, the easier to discard them for the next Christmas season’s latest models.

On TV we see places abroad all lit up for the holidays, including those that aren’t even predominantly Christian such as Hong Kong and Singapore. We don’t hear reports of fires breaking out as a result of those curtains of lights.

So we buy boxes and boxes of lights, string them together and drape them over everything. They come with tinny Christmas carols activated through the same little box that controls the blinking of the lights. Everything is pretty and cheerful, and the ones designed for outdoors do survive dust and out-of-season typhoons. Only rising power costs set the limit in lighting up one’s home.

Now there’s the tragedy of KC and a fire that supposedly started from the lights on a Christmas tree. Suddenly the public is listening to government warnings about faulty Christmas lights. All along we thought the warnings were coming merely from local manufacturers who couldn’t survive the flood of cheap competition from China.

We can probably breathe easier if the government requires all Christmas lights to come with detailed instructions about safe installation, or with guidelines on spotting potentially defective lights.

But some people are saying that even cheap lights can be safe if properly installed, while expensive ones can also malfunction if installed by someone clueless about electrical connections. For now I don’t think there’s any stopping the flood of cheap imported Christmas lights.

Worrying about fires and Christmas lights diminishes the merriment of the season, but at least we can still celebrate. For the De Venecia family, the lights will be out and joy will be elusive for a long time.