Great Eastern Hotel employees to be questioned

Five employees of the Great Eastern Hotel, formerly Aberdeen Court, have been invited by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) to shed light on the two-hour fire that hit the hotel last week and left one person dead and several others injured.

Senior Superintendent Carlito Romero, BFP’s director for operations, said the five employees could tell where and how the fire started and eventually gutted the three other floors of the 19-story commercial establishment.

"We are hoping to get something (some information) from their statements to be able to establish the cause of the fire," Romero told The STAR. "And from there we hope to come up with measures to prevent similar incident."

At the time of the fire, Romero said that investigators learned that no welding activity was being done, though portions of the buildings have been under renovation works.

Arson investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fire that hit the hotel and trapped guests, including about 50 officials of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), for several hours.

Rodolfo Viloria of DILG Ilocos Region died at the Orthopedic Hospital due to fractured bones after he fell from the fifth floor of the building.

Other DILG officials said Viloria was with them when the fire broke out. However, he and other officials went up to the 12th floor of the building and used blankets as their makeshift ropes to be able to get down from the burning building.

As Viloria was hanging on makeshift ropes on his way down, the blankets were disentangled and he fell to his death. His body has been flown to his hometown in Ilocos.

Arson investigators earlier said they are looking into the possibility of holding the hotel management liable for Viloria’s death and Viloria and the injuries sustained by 14 others during the two-hour fire Thursday night.

BFP officials found that the hotel does not have a fire safety inspection certificate (FSIC), which is supposed to be secured before the hotel could get an occupancy permit.

BFP director Jose Collado said the hotel management is reportedly in the process of applying for an FSIC and BFP authorities are scheduled to conduct an inspection last Friday, a day after the fire broke out.

"They don’t have FSIC, meaning they are not supposed to accept guests until after a certification has been issued. The hotel management can be held liable for the violation," Collado said.

Based on the initial investigation conducted by eight arson investigators, the fire originated at the stockroom located on the sixth floor.

"From the point of origin, the fire rapidly spread out to the 7th and 8th floor of the building," the two-page report stated. – Cecille Suerte Felipe, Marijoe Yu, Jan Camille Canivel