ShareThisTUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan — It’s a black Christmas for the families, classmates and friends of 16 persons, nine of them nursing graduates of La Salette University in nearby Santiago City, Isabela who are about to take the nursing board exams, who perished in a fire that razed a hotel in this city Sunday.
The relatives of the victims and those of at least a dozen nursing students who were injured fumed mad as they asked that those responsible for the needless conflagaration to be punished. At least 36 nursing students were at the hotel for their final review for the nursing board exams when the fire broke out and 27 had escaped or were rescued.
It turned out that the five-storey Bed and Breakfast Pension House had no mayor’s permit to operate and it had violated building and fire regulations with the absence of a safe fire escape and grilled windows and exits, recalling the deadliest fire incident at the Ozone Disco in Quezon City many years ago.
Initial Bureau of Fire Protection findings showed the fire may have stemmed from an electrical short circuit at a motorcycle parts store at the ground floor of the hotel.
Rescuers found one fatality embracing his laptop, another holding on to his bag while a mother and her daughter died embracing each other. Others went to the bathrooms and wore wet blankets but they were still suffocated.
The situation caught the attention of President Aquino who ordered the Departments of Interior and Local Government and Justice to get to the bottom of the hotel blaze even as he directed the Department of Social Welfare to extend assistance to the victims and their families.
“Aaminin ko sa inyo sobra akong pikon nang nalaman ko kahapon yan, dahil lumalabas sa initial report, walang fire inspection
(I will admit that I really got angry when I learned about the fire incident yesterday, because based on the initial report, there was no fire inspection conducted on the hotel.) Aquino told reporters.
Aquino said he was told that there were a lot of combustible materials on the second floor of the five-storey edifice, which prompted the victims to go up to the top floors where they were trapped.
Aquino issued his directives to Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima with explicit instructions to expedite the probe and bring to justice those found guilty for the tragedy.
“Bottomline, may mga hindi gumawa ng dapat nilang gawin (there are those who did not perform their duties) that would have prevented this tragedy so kahapon pa lang, inutusan na natin na mag-imbestiga ang Secretary ng Interior and Local Government (I have directed the Secretary of Interior and Local Government to investigate the tragedy),” the President said.
“Pinakiusap ko na mag-coordinate ang DILG at ang Department of Justice at pagkatapos ng imbestigasyon, yung mga nagkulang ay dapat panagutin sa lalong madaling panahon (I asked that the DILG coordinate their investigative efforts with the Department of Justice and to bring those responsible for this tragedy to justice),” he said.
Even the firemen who conducted the rescue and search operations for the trapped hotel guests grieved as they retrieved charred bodies of the victims who were trapped on the top two floors of the hotel.
“Their families spent fortunes to send these children to school only to see them end that way,” Bureau of Fire investigator Daniel Abana said.
The fire raged for eight hours early Sunday and gutted the pension house.
Dozens of guests, roused by the commotion, were rescued by firefighters and police or reached safety on their own, Abana said.
Many of the dead had crammed in bathrooms on the top two floors. One victim had a foot stuck out of a window in a desperate attempt to survive, he said.