‘Lord, they did not leave anyone for me’

"I was hoping to see them alive."

Eleanor Schofield shrieked when she saw the bodies of her boyfriend and 17-year-old daughter after earlier finding her seven-year-old son dead in a hospital, all of them victims of the fire that gutted a budget hotel in Quezon City before dawn yesterday.

They had been staying at the Manor Hotel along Kamias Road while she was out of town, and she rushed back after hearing of the fire.

"Lord, Lord, they did not leave anyone for me!" she cried. "I was hoping to see them alive, but they are all dead."

Eugene Schwebler, 60, from Wisconsin, said he tried to flee his fourth-floor room but heat turned him back. He pulled the air conditioner out of the wall for access to the fire escape.

"I don’t know how many came out," he said, holding a candle as he returned to get his belongings. "The lights went out and we heard people screaming."

Schwebler said he thought the fire started in a restaurant on the third floor, site of the worst damage.

Police said the hotel, apparently built in the ’70s, had 236 registered guests, with 172 attending the Don Clowers Ministries healing crusade at nearby Araneta Coliseum in Cubao. The ministry is based in Irving, Texas.

"I thought we would all die," said Joanne Pangilinan, 19, from her hospital bed at East Avenue Medical Center where she was rushed.

"I am thankful to the Lord that we survived. I just hope that everything will be alright for the other people in that hotel," said Joanne, who fears having lost three of her roommates in the fire.

One of her roommates, Alfredo Briones, 23, of Pampanga, said he and his companions arrived in Cubao, Quezon City last Thursday.

Shortly after the first-day session of the convention, Briones, a member of the Jesus is Lord ministry, said he and more than 100 participants were herded to the Manor Hotel to stay until yesterday afternoon.

Briones, Pangilinan and five other friends occupied Room 304. But at around 4:10 a.m., they were awakened by loud noises outside prompting them to check.

"When we opened the door, we could no longer breathe because of the thick smoke. We decided to go to the bathroom and wet ourselves. But my friends panicked as electricity went off," he added.

Briones said he and three other roommates went to the window for air.

"It was from the window where the rescuers took us," he said.

Janice Quinto, 19, who was taken to East Avenue Medical Center, said she and her six roommates were roused from sleep in Room 405 by a loud knock on the door.

Thick smoke engulfed the room and the lights went out when they opened the door. She survived only by going to the window of the room, where rescuers sawed off the iron grills.

Anxiety was written all over the face of another delegate, Pastor Angelo Mingoy as he scoured the emergency room of the EAMC.

The pastor evaded tragedy because at the time of the fire, he was out of the hotel checking the crusade’s vehicles parked near Nepa-Q Mart off EDSA.

He said that three-year-old Jochen Salonga, a son of one of the delegates, died of suffocation.

"He was already unconscious when taken out of the hotel and we can’t find his mother. We are now searching the other hospitals to look for the other delegates," he added.

Although it was painful to lose friends, Briones said the incident would only help him strengthen his faith in God.

"He gave me another life, while as for my friends who did not make it, God has plans for them. Who knows? We should not question His plans," he said.

Like Briones, 53-year-old Leonarda Nallana said she would view her traumatic experience as God’s handiwork.

"My faith will further strengthen," she said in Filipino. The devout Catholic, who is now recovering at the EAMC, said she lost consciousness when she choked on the thick smoke. Next thing she knew, she was in hospital being attended to by doctors.

For 23-year-old Daisy Toledo, she was roused from sleep by the thick smoke.

"My pastor friend pulled me to the bathroom and had ourselves sprinkled with water. But when we went out of the bathroom, smoke was all over the room that I lost consciousness," said Toledo, who is also at the EAMC nursing a slight fever.

Aside from the EAMC, victims were also rushed to the V. Luna Hospital, the Quirino Memorial and Medical Center, the Lung Center, the Quezon City Medical Center and the Quezon City General Hospital.

About 8,000 people were at the healing conference at the Araneta Coliseum yesterday, waving their arms in the air, singing and praying for the victims and their families.

Don Clowers, attending with his wife and son, asked for donations for the victims and said he would pick up expenses related to the fire. His evangelical ministry is popular with the Philippines’ rural poor. – Cecille Suerte Felipe, Sheila Crisostomo, Jaime Laude