IBP mourns loss of member: Fire kills lawyer, wife and helper

CEBU, Philippines - A lawyer, his wife and their househelp were killed in a fire that hit the couple’s ancestral house at Calderon Compound in sitio Banawa, Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City yesterday dawn.

 Police and fire investigators found among the rubble the charred remains of lawyer Manuel Barrios Pastrana, 79; his wife Norma, 74; and their househelp identified only as Joy, 40.

 Pastrana’s nephew, Court of Appeals Associate Justice Manuel Barrios, 58, and his son, lawyer Manuel Isidro, who were also staying in the house, were able to get out of the house during the incident.

 Police said the remains of the Pastranas were found five meters apart near the living room of the 48-year-old house.

Joy, whose remains were found at the kitchen, was sleeping at the maid’s quarter when the fire broke out.Fire Officer 3 Antonio Gonzales said the bodies were retrieved around 5 a.m.

Oliver Flores, 29, a driver of the Pastranas, told reporters yesterday that the fire started at the living room of the house. He said he was sleeping with his family in a separate house, some 10 meters away, when he was awakened by Barrios’ shouts for help.

When he woke up, he saw thick smoke and the blaze was already starting to spread to the rest of the house.

Gonzales said that the couple’s son John Peter, 39, rushed to the room of their parents to wake them up. The couple reportedly responded: “O, pagawas na mi.” But he no longer heard any response from them later.

 Flores and Joven Sabonera, the family’s carpenter, kept banging the door at the kitchen to awaken Joy.

But instead of going out through the nearest kitchen door, Joy walked through the dining area where she was trapped by the fire.

 Norma, Flores said, is the sister of former partylist congressman Tito Calderon. She is one of the owners of the Archangel Security Agency near Cebu Doctors’ Hospital.

Fire investigators pegged the damage at P900,000. The fire, which erupted at 1 a.m. and was controlled 12 minutes later, was placed under first alarm.

 Gonzales said they are still investigating the origin of the fire, although they are initially pointing at faulty wiring as the cause. The house was built in 1962.

More OBO men sought

 Following the incident, city building official Josefa Ylanan asked the city officials to hire additional personnel so the Office of the Building Officials (OBO) will be effective in inspecting establishments in the city.

Vice Mayor Michael Rama said the building officials cannot be blamed if they failed to inspect commercial buildings in the city for lack of personnel.

The City Council had made several requests for OBO to inspect boarding houses and other commercial establishments to find out whether they complied with the fire and building code.

Ylanan said OBO has only 32 personnel, including the non-technical personnel such as clerks and utility men.

She said her office has only 12 technical personnel mostly licensed engineers, nine of them handle the processing of applications for building and occupancy permits. Only three are in charge of the inspections.

Ylanan said it would be impossible for the three inspectors to inspect thousands of structures in the city, which has 80 barangays.

Ylanan said she already recommended for the hiring of more technical personnel for her office, but the City Hall’s personnel department failed to act on her request.

But Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he did not receive any request to hire more people for OBO.

IBP mourns

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines is mourning over the loss of one of its members who died in yesterday’s fire.

 Pastrana, who is reportedly a son of a vice governor of Aklan, was described by the IBP staff as a silent and serious man who was very dedicated to his job.

 Pastrana, according to lawyer Michael Yu, president of IBP, was a long time member who focused on commercial and corporate laws.

 “On behalf of the IBP, we send our deepest condolences to the family of Atty. Pastrana,” said Yu.

 Yu said that although he was personally not close to the victim, they were all saddened upon hearing of the incident since Pastrana was a big loss to the organization. — With AJ de la Torre/LPM (FREEMAN NEWS)