|
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Chained addict dies in dawn fire
By Jovy S. Taghoy
CEBU CITY -- What started as a domestic quarrel resulted in the loss of life and P800,000 worth of property. A distraught husband allegedly set their house on fire and threw several burning clothes at an adjacent house in Mambaling, Cebu City.
The fire killed 28-year-old Armando Bangcal, who was left inside their house when his parents and siblings failed to remove the chain that they kept on him for the past two years.
Bangcal's parents said their son had undergone drug rehabilitation and they kept him in chains to control his violent tendencies.
Dwellings of the Badjao community were also razed, leaving almost all of them without homes.
Before fleeing, the alleged perpetrator Gregorio Unabia, 74, also stabbed his neighbor 22-year-old Michael Torres and the latter's three-month-old daughter with a bolo.
Manhunt
Torres and the baby were rushed to the Cebu City Medical Center.
Unabia, a resident of Sitio Naba who was identified by the police and the fire department, is now the subject of a manhunt.
Fire investigators are looking at two angles that could have provoked Unabia to start the fire: a quarrel between him and wife, who remained unidentified as of Tuesday, or his alleged resentment over the hog-raising business of Torres' mother-in-law Gemma de la Cerna.
Reports in the area also said Unabia was mentally disturbed.
Torres, who was carrying his daughter, was stabbed in the chest, while the three-month-old child suffered wounds in the right side of her body and right thigh.
Also injured in the incident were FO1 Jose Antonio Torres, who suffered cuts in both hands, and two members of the Badjao community, 16 and 17, who suffered cuts in their feet after jumping out from the windows of their houses.
The teenagers landed in the mangroves.
Windy
Strong winds fanned the flames that quickly spread to the houses in the neighboring Sitio Pungtod, where more than 240 families of the Badjao community lived.
It took firefighters the whole morning to put out the blaze, which they controlled 38 minutes after it was reported at 5:07 a.m.
Most of the residents were still asleep when the fire broke out.
Since the houses in the interior portion of Sitio Naba were made of light materials and the area was densely populated, Fire Marshal Ysmael Codilla put the fire under general alarm.
The Filipino-Chinese Volunteer Fire Brigade, Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation and fire stations from Metro Cebu helped the Bureau of Fire Protection in Cebu City.
SFO1 Frank Donozo, the fire investigator, has so far listed at least 150 houses destroyed in Sitio Naba and neighboring Sitio Pungtod, all in Barangay Mambaling.
More victims
Donozo, however, said the number of houses is expected to rise when he will have the final report Wednesday.
Donozo initially pegged the damage to property at P800,000.
Mambaling Barangay Captain Rodolfo Estella said the displaced families will be temporarily sheltered at the Alaska Elementary School and at the basketball court.
The displaced Badjao community is temporarily sheltered in a government-issued tent in Sitio Abuno near the South Reclamation Project (SRP).
The Badjaos, who are sometimes called sea gypsies, have put up stilt houses made of bamboo and nipa in a community near the South Reclamation Area.
The barangay council is expected to meet for an emergency session to declare the area under a state of calamity.
On Unabia's possible liabilities, Donozo said the BFP is preparing arson charges against Unabia, while the Cebu City Police Homicide Section is also preparing a criminal case for the stabbing of Torres and his three-month-old daughter.
Berserk
Jiji Ana, de la Cerna's daughter and live-in partner of Torres, told Sun.Star Cebu Tuesday that Unabia, after torching their house and that of her mother, came out with a bolo in his hand.
Jiji Ana said Unabia, for no apparent reason, suddenly stabbed Torres and the baby.
Both Torres and his daughter were taken to the Cebu City Medical Center where they underwent an operation.
As for Bangcal, Senior Police Officer 4 Erlando Metante of the Homicide Section said the victim's parents tried to rescue him but were forced to leave him when the fire started to engulf the entire house.
Narcisa, 50, and Fernando, 48, told Metante that they had chained Bangcal for the past two years.
Narcisa said Bangcal was a drug addict and had been in and out of the rehabilitation center five times already.
Chained
And yet, every time he came out of the rehabilitation center, he went back to using drugs until he became very violent that he stabbed the people who came near him.
Narcisa said her family decided to chain him on the ground floor of their two-story house.
Homicide investigators recovered the two metal chains and three padlocks used on Bangcal.
City Councilor Gerardo Carillo promised to look into the possible liabilities of the parents on chaining their son.
(April 20, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
|
|
Musharraf urges Pinoy Muslims to reject terror