Friday, September 27, 2002
7TH FATALITY SINCE SATURDAY Another fire kills woman, 78
By Rene H. Martel
ALTHOUGH authorities could file a complaint against the parents of the children who died during the fires that took place in Consolacion, Toledo City and Asturias, the police are not keen on suing them.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) provincial marshal, on the other hand, said that unless the parents were just gallivanting, filing a complaint is like adding insult to injury.
Fire claimed the lives of six children since last Saturday in the province. The first victim was a one-year-old girl in Garing, Consolacion, followed by the three siblings in Toledo City, and the two brothers in Asturias town.
A 78-year-old woman in Poblacion, Tabuelan became the seventh fire casualty when her house burned down around 6 p.m. last Wednesday.
The victim, who was sickly, may have accidentally hit the kerosene lamp with her foot while she slept and started the fire that destroyed her shanty.
PO3 Christopher San-chez, Tabuelan police investigator, said the victim lived alone because she had no children and her husband had died. Neighbors told him it was Pacencia Cole’s habit to place her kerosene lamp at the foot of her mat before going to sleep.
Meanwhile, police chiefs of Consolacion, Toledo City, and Asturias voiced the same sentiment when told the fire victims’ parents may be sued for negligence.
But if somebody or the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will stand as the complainant, the police will have no choice but to go to court.
“To charge the parents is to blame them for the death of their children. No parent wants to lose a child. So they erred in leaving them alone, but they were just trying to eke a living,” said Supt. Ricardo Tarroza of Toledo City.
Last Monday, three children, who were locked up inside their house, died in Barangay Luay, Toledo City, when fire burned down their home while their parents were away.
Their father was gathering coconut wine while their mother went out to fetch their grazing cow.
Saturday last week, a one-year-old girl also died in Garing, Consolacion when she and her two siblings were left alone in their shanty.
Their father went to fetch water two kilometers away while their mother was out buying food.
Insp. Iluminado Alin, Consolacion police chief, said they could file a complaint if the DSWD will stand as complainant.
But what the victims’ parents need right now is help, Alin said.
Asturias Police Chief Eliakim Awit echoed the sentiments of the parents of the two children who died in the Barangay Langub fire.
He said a complaint will just bring more problems instead of relief to the grieving family, who, as of press time, were forced to use a waiting shed as temporary shelter.
Their neighbors refused to take them into their homes because of an old belief that doing so is bad luck, an ABS-CBN report said.
Supt. Anderson Comar, BFP provincial fire marshal, for his part, said a complaint is only justifiable if the parents were gallivanting when the incidents happened.
“Maayo gani tabangan hinoon. Kung imong ikiha imo rang gidoot. Namatyan pa sila, imo pa gyung ikiha. Sobra ra,” he said. (We should help the families. They’ve already lost so much.)
In the Tabuelan incident, helpless neighbors could only watch as fire burned Cole, 78, along with her house in Barangay Poblacion last Wednesday.
PO3 Sanchez said neighbors noticed the fire around 6 p.m., but the blaze spread so fast the house was gutted in minutes.
“Napatiran siguro ang suga maong nasunog. Shanty ra man nya light materials, kadyot ra kaayo naugdaw dayon,” Sanchez said. (Her house was made of light materials, which is why it went up in smoke so quickly.)
Tabuelan does not have a firetruck and had to rely on the neighboring town of Tuburan, which has one, every time there’s a fire in the town.
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