Three barangays under state of calamity: Council eyes reblocking at fire scene

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council yesterday placed barangays Lorega-San Miguel, Bulacao, and Mabolo under a state calamity after fire wiped out hundreds of homes the past few days.

While the city government assured the affected residents that they could return, the estimated 7,000 people who lost their homes in the Lorega-San Miguel fire were requested to transfer to designated evacuation centers starting yesterday.

The residents where those from sitios Lawis, Kamansi, Serias, San Roque, Laguna, Laray, Quadrangle, San Miguel, and Itum-yuta whose homes were destroyed by Tuesday afternoon’s fire.

Instead of making makeshift structures in or near the fire scene, they would have to be temporarily sheltered at the Sacred Heart gym and the covered courts of barangays T. Padilla, Day-as, and Zapatera;  and of Zapatera Elementary School.

With the City Council’s declaration, fire victims of Lorega-San Miguel, Bulacao, and Mabolo could not avail of their barangay’s respective calamity funds as assistance.

City Councilors Gerardo Carillo and David Tumulak, who heads the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office chairman, authored the resolution declaring the state of calamity in the three barangays.

He said it would be up to Mayor Michael Rama whether to give the assistance in cash or as housing materials.

Before Lorega-San Miguel fire struck Bulacao, razing five houses, and Mabolo, damaging eight houses, last March 10.

Both Tumulak and Rama considered the Lorega-San Miguel fire as the biggest to have hit the city so far.

The council also approved Tumulak’s request for the conduct of a survey for reblocking and clearing to give way to an access road in Lorega-San Miguel.

Tumulak said Tuesday afternoon’s blaze exposed the limitations of the city firefighters’ capabilities, among which is their inability to have their firetrucks to really penetrate a fire scene.

For that reason, the council requested the Cebu Contractors’ Association, Lorega-San Miguel officials, Department of Engineering and Public Works, and the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor to conduct the reblocking survey.

DWUP Chief Collin Rossell assured the residents can still go back to their original locations, saying that even though the lots may be owned by private entities, they are bound by law to follow due process.

In a resolution the City Council also approved in yesterday’s session, City Councilor Alvin Dizon requested the National Housing Authority (NHA), through its general manager Atty. Chito Cruz, to extend housing assistance to the estimated 1,500 families in Lorega-San Miguel whom the fire rendered homeless.

Dizon said they have already availed last year of  NHA’s P500,000 Housing Materials Assistance Program (HOMA) for the fire victims of barangays Day-as, Carreta, Sawang Calero, Ermita, Calamba, and Sambag II.

Dizon said the HOMA is on top of the P5,000 housing assistance that each affected family receives from the city government.

SFO2 Danilo Relatado, fire investigator, said that an estimated 500 houses were burned down in the Lorega-San Miguel fire that destroyed around P25 million worth of properties.

He said they received the alarm around 4:57 p.m., controlled the flames around 7:26 p.m., and declared a totally put the fire out at 2:24 a.m. yesterday.

The responding firetrucks included those from Cebu City, Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City, Consolacion, Compostela, Talisay City, Minglanilla, City of Naga, San Fernando, and Carcar City.

Relatado said they believed the fire started at the second floor of the house of Bobby Hortezano from where witnesses heard an explosion.

Relatado said they are looking at the possibility that the fire was caused by electrical misuse, with illegal tapping allegedly very rampant in the area.

Barangay Captain Fritz Herrera said homes in six of the nine affected sitios were severely damaged, while those in the remaining three were partially burned.  There was no reported fatality in the fire.

Herrera said 1,500 families, or roughly 40 percent of the barangay’s population, were affected by the fire.

He described last Tuesday’s fire as the worst fire to hit the barangay after a 1997 conflagration.

He said it was ironic that on the day he instructed Lorega-San Miguel officials to gather funds to purchase a firetruck, a fire broke out in the barangay.

Rama, who visited the area yesterday morning, encouraged the fire victims to transfer to the evacuation sites to prevent unscrupulous individuals from preying on them.

He also discouraged the distribution of relief goods along the road and told the residents that as of the moment, he would not allow them to reconstruct their homes.

Rama said that they have identified food, water, latrines, electricity, health and sanitation, and crowd control as among the major concerns of the affected families.

Herrera assured the fire victims that the evacuation centers would be comfortable. He said their top priority was to transfer vulnerable residents, such as the women, children and senior citizens, to the evacuation centers. —/RHM (FREEMAN)