Class suit eyed vs Butuan fire victims' employer

BUTUAN CITY, Philippines  – A lawyer-relative of one of the 17 fatalities in last Wednesday’s fire that razed a commercial building here plans to file a class suit against the victims’ employer, a garment store, and the building’s owners.

Besides suing Novo Jeans and Shirts Enterprises, lawyer Danilo Delima Lim is also studying filing administrative charges against city officials and other concerned authorities for failing to close the store and the building for posing grave danger to the occupants and the general public as well.

This, as city permits and licensing division chief Paul Cabrera clarified that a business permit was issued last Jan. 20 to Novo under the name of Fabulous Jeans and Shirts of Alexander Arqueza.

The store though had no mechanical safety and fire safety inspection certificates since no fire drills were conducted, he said.

The 17 fatalities were Novo’s female stay-in workers who were trapped when the fire struck the building before dawn last Wednesday. Three other employees survived the tragedy.

Cabrera recalled noticing the presence of young women at the store’s sleeping quarters at the mezzanine floor when they inspected the premises last September.

But the management told him that the room was only a resting place, not sleeping quarters for the employees, he said.

Lim described as “flimsy and absurd” the reasoning of Novo legal counsel Oliver Yuan that the company did not violate any laws because three workers managed to escape by using the fire exit on the second floor.

Yuan denied that the Novo management had padlocked the doors.

In their initial report though, firefighters said it took them some time to destroy the two padlocks at the store’s roll-up doors to gain entry.

Meanwhile, only six of the 17 fatalities have been identified so far with the help of their families and relatives.

The six fatalities are Joanlie Amor, secretary; Judelyn Ore and Ellenie Ocoy, both assistant supervisors; Mylyn Lieazon and Princess Grace Sayre, both cashiers; and Princess Mae Figueras, bagger.