Preventing fires: Use the scout's motto

While I'm writing this column inside my office, I could hear the wailing sirens of fire trucks rushing towards another fire somewhere. Curious as I always am, I got out of our building and I could see thick black smoke rising up the summer sky towards the direction of Mandaue City. I gathered later that the fire struck the old Mandaue City Abattoir and Market. Just a couple of nights ago, fire also struck a few establishments along Ma. Cristina St. not far from the Cebu Doctors Hospital.

We know that March has been annually called Fire Prevention Month, which brings people to ask: Why are there a lot of fires during the month that we asked to help prevent fires? Honestly I do not have straight answers to that question. I can only second-guess that the Bureau of Fire Protection came up with this program as the highest incidents of fires happen during the month of March.

I have had my personal experiences about fires. Back in 1969 when the entire Oriente Theater complex was burned to the ground (we were showing the movie The Green Berets starring John Wayne) and in 1989, our restaurant Chika-an Restaurant along Queens Road near the Redemptorist Church also burned down. You have to experience being defeated by fire before one becomes more conscious of exerting any effort to prevent future fires. Since then, I had personally stopped two would-be conflagrations in our building because of the presence of fire extinguishers.

Like crime, the first line of defense is you! If you bought a fire extinguisher (make sure it works properly when needed) chances are, you would be able to extinguish any fire before it gets out of control. Remember, by the time you are able to call the Fire Department or the Chinese Volunteer Fire Brigade and they get into your burning house or building, 30 minutes may have already passed and chances are the fire is already getting out of control. If you had a fire extinguisher, the fire can easily be controlled by you and you won't even need to call the Fire Department.

The best way to prevent fires is to be prepared for it, like having a fire extinguisher always on ready. As they old saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure". This means, if you believe that your house is using substandard wiring, then you're better off changing it now before a fire totally remodels your house and raze it to the ground. It would be more expensive for you to rebuilt it!

Another thing that you need to do if you are living in a place, which has narrow streets: Let your barangay officials enforce the no-parking rule along very narrow streets where cars park illegally especially during the night because a fire might just happen in the vicinity. Fire trucks will be unable to pass because the road would be clogged with vehicles, whose owners couldn't care any less that they are preventing the fire department from doing its work. This has to be addressed. I know CITOM is just waiting to help the residents clear their roadways.

Mind you, car owners get mad when you do this to them, but if you tell them that they could be charged for homicide because their blocking the road is reckless endangerment to the people living nearby, they might see the light as the life they save may just be their own. Preventing fires is simply following the Scout's Motto: Be Prepared!

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Finally, the Philippines have already an anti-terror law that can be used against our fight against Global terrorism. I'm sure that the allied organizations supporting the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) are making up stories that this anti-terror law would be waged against the ordinary Filipinos whose lives would now be in constant danger. One proviso there is for suspected terrorists to be detained for three days and if there would be no charges filed against these suspects, they would have to be released. Other countries detain terrorists even for as long as a month!

Actually, the Anti-Terror law only strengthens our law enforcement arm that they cannot make any illegal detention of suspected terrorists, as this was not allowed in the past. Let me point out that the Anti-Terror law passed through the virtual eye of the needle especially from the Senate, which is ruled mostly by the opposition. Let me point out clearly, that the Anti-Terror law isn't the victory of the Arroyo Administration only, but the victory of the Filipino people who have long suffered under the threat of the Communists, especially the New People's Army (NPA) who have repeatedly burned or destroyed private property of businessmen who refuse to pay their revolutionary taxes. The Cellsites of Globe Telecom is one best example.

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