Investigators not ruling out arson in Comelec fire

Investigators have not ruled out arson behind the fire that razed the main building of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last Sunday.

Superintendent Fennimore Jaudian, chief investigator of the Inter-Agency Anti-Arson Task Force (IAAATF), said they are not ruling out the possibility of foul play but admitted their initial evidence show the blaze was caused by faulty electrical wiring.

Jaudian said investigators will still have to check the physical evidence gathered from the fire scene.

Jaudian added the results of the investigation will be based on the statements of the Comelec employees over the incident as well as the result of physical evidence gathered from the scene of the fire, which is now being analyzed by experts from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

"We are not yet ruling out any angle… So far we have identified the origin of the fire at the ceiling or upper portion of the structure. What we should do next is to identify the cause, but it’s too early to tell," Jaudian told a press briefing at the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) yesterday.

The NBI has dispatched three experts to help out in the investigation to determine the cause of the fire.

NBI Director Nestor Mantaring named bomb expert Romeo Cotingjo, electrical engineer David Aoanan and chemist George de Lara to represent the agency in the IAAATF.

Aoanan is an arson expert working for the NBI with 17 years of experience.

Roy Cartagena, Aoanan’s immediate supervisor at the NBI, said they would have to gather samples of burned electrical wires to determine the cause.

He said it might take them two weeks to complete their investigation considering the size of the area destroyed by the fire.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the poll body will also conduct its own investigation on the incident.

Jimenez said Comelec executive director Pio Joson had been directed by Chairman Benjamin Abalos to make the inquiry into the fire.

"(The inquiry is) not so much into the cause of the fire but what the people who were there were doing before the fire started in order to establish whether or not these people had anything to do with it," Jimenez said.

Joson himself was among the 25 people who were in the building when the fire broke out early Sunday.

The blaze was initially traced at the ground floor of the building or the General Services area where generators were being maintained.

"We’ll ask the people what they were doing at the time the fire started to find out if they had contributed to the fire in anyway or if they caused it. What we have to find out here is if there was any sort of negligence and to make sure that if there was negligence, proper penalties are meted out," Jimenez said.

He assured Comelec will be coordinating its efforts with IAAATF in the investigation of the incident.

On the other hand, Jaudian said analysis and examination on the debris collected from the scene of the fire could indicate the cause of the blaze, regardless of the absence of chemical substance used in starting the fire.

"If the fire was caused by a match stick we can also trace that. If the fire was really caused by electrical system, or what is commonly known as faulty electrical wiring, we can still determine whether there was an overload or short circuit," Jaudian said.

DILG Undersecretary Marius Corpus said five Comelec employees he identified as Ariel Sandrino, his wife Lolita; Jaime Galgo, Danny Rabullar, and Lovely Deroy, have given their statements to the investigators of IAAATF.

"All the five employees of the commission have given their statements, which our investigators said corroborated with each other that the blaze started at the ceiling of the structure," Corpus said.

Investigators are set to interview about 10 more stay-in workers of the Comelec.

Although there was an apparent corroboration on the statements made by the witnesses, Jaudian said investigators will still need to get physical evidence.

"We are not discounting the possibility that all witnesses made up their stories, we really need physical evidence," Jaudian said.

Ariel Sandrino claimed he was awakened by loud shouts outside the building pointing to a fire. He added waking up his wife and Galgo where they took a fire extinguisher in the effort to contain the fire.

"I gave the fire extinguisher to Galgo but it was empty. So I called on him again to wake up and alert the other co-workers who may be inside the building," Sandrino said.

Sandrino said most of the other employees got out of the burning building and ran towards nearby Palacio del Governador for safety.

Corpus noted though Sandrino was not able to shut down the circuit breaker, apparently hesitating that other employees could be trapped inside the building.

"The problem was caused by the circuit breaker which could have contained the blaze if it was shut down," Corpus pointed out. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Evelyn Macairan