EDITORIAL - Fire safety

Though some parents and students resented the program and refused to participate, the Brigada Eskwela was a good way to prepare for the school opening in poorly equipped and undermanned public schools. The program tapped parents, students, teachers and soldiers to help clean up, repaint and undertake minor repairs of public school buildings.

As additional preparation, the Bureau of Fire Protection has been ordered to inspect schools and dormitories for fire safety. This must be carried out in coordination with local governments, which issue licenses and permits to dormitories. A number of dormitories particularly around Manila’s University Belt are not registered, with boarders and bed spacers passed off as relatives of the owner. This exempts dormitory operators from business fees as well as the required inspections by city personnel for fire and building safety as well as sanitation. Students go along with this setup because such dormitories charge lower than those whose operations are all aboveboard.

City and municipal governments point out that they lack personnel to ferret out these unlicensed dormitories. But the barangay system can be tapped for this task. Barangay officials know members of the community personally, and if they don’t, they should make it their business to know. It is not impossible to identify private homes that operate as dormitories. And it is not hard to pinpoint which buildings are potential firetraps, especially in the neighborhoods around colleges and universities.

Fire Prevention Month is over and the summer season has officially ended. But the onset of rains has never stopped fires from destroying entire communities, especially in the densely populated areas of Metro Manila. A fire recently destroyed a computer school. Fire safety officials have enumerated common violations in school buildings, including the lack of secondary exits and defective manual fire alarms. Those violations can be easily corrected. School operators themselves should want their establishments to comply with fire and building safety standards.