Drug user who allegedly started Tondo fire falls

Policemen arrested yesterday a man suspected to have started a fire that razed a shantytown in Manila, leaving about 7,840 people homeless.

Suspect Jose Quinanola was arrested before dawn inside a karaoke bar in the Tondo district, close to the Happy Land property that burned down in the Manila port area Thursday, said police sources.

Arson investigator Reden Alumno said Quinanola admitted he took a drug called shabu, the street name for methamphetamine hydrochloride, before setting Thursday’s four-hour blaze.

"He said he could not understand himself and that bad spirits made him do it," Alumno said.

Witnesses told arson investigators they saw Quinanola pour a liquid substance at his house shortly before the fire, and Quinanola said he set fire to a curtain inside.

Shortly after his arrest, angry residents tried to maul Quinanola, a known drug user and neighborhood tough guy, but were stopped by policemen.

Alumno said a charge of "consummated arson," which carries the death penalty, would be filed against Quinanola.

Police said about 20 people were treated for slight injuries and smoke inhalation. Alumno said no one was killed or missing.

Celerina Sangil of the Manila Social Welfare Department said 1,743 families, or about 7,840 people, lost their homes. It was still unclear how many shanties were burned because many families shared one. Fire investigators reported 600 "structures" burned down, she said.

Among those who lost their homes were 88 families in a tenement building, where they had been transferred by the government about six years ago from shanties on Smokey Mountain, a large garbage dump on the shores of Manila Bay, Sangil said.

She said these families were to be moved to a temporary housing project beside Smokey Mountain. Local officials were still to discuss where to relocate the other fire victims, she added.

Aside from the tenement building and the shanties, the fire also burned down an unoccupied tenement and an empty warehouse, said Chief Superintendent Francisco Senot of the Bureau of Fire Protection. Two fire trucks that were trapped in a narrow street also burned.

Senot said the fire spread quickly through the slum community because the shanties were made of light and highly flammable materials.

Firefighters also had a hard time because narrow streets and alleys prevented fire trucks from getting closer to the blaze.

Some residents tried to help put out the fire by shoveling soil onto burning shanties.

Fires are common in Manila shantytowns that are built illegally on government or private property in depressed areas. – Jose Aravilla