Lessons from Gaisano fire

It was a tragic Christmas for more than a thousand employees of Gaisano Capital South displaced by last Friday’s fire that broke out in downtown Cebu City.

Yes, there were no casualties since the fire started at midnight, thus there were no people present at the time. But the costs and the resulting displacement of the workers, a lot of whom were hired through agencies, cannot be dismissed by management.

Results of an investigation into the fire incident have yet to be completed. Two days have passed and by now, surely firefighting authorities have concluded whether it was accidental or an act of sabotage.

But still, there’s plenty to observe in last Friday’s fire; firefighters for one had to wait for permission from management to break down the display windows since the owners didn’t want to sustain any additional damage to property.

It wasn’t until Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama arrived that the order to break down the store windows was carried out, and by then, the damage to the store had already been extensive.

Yet another perennial problem was the lack of re-breather masks for firefighters that hampered them in dealing with the fire effectively. As if they didn’t have enough problems on their own putting out fires in narrow, dingy sitios with barely any fire hydrants nearby.

We understand that the Cebu City Council already passed a bare-bones budget for the city—okay, some meat into the bones with an additional billion pesos from last year’s budget—and we have to know whether some of those funds went to paying additional firefighting equipment.

There was a four-hour delay for fire fighters and a lot of things can happen in four hours, not least of which is massive destruction of property. Due to the building’s location at the intersection of three downtown streets including Colon, there is always the possibility that given enough time it would spread to other nearby structures.

Store employees were assured of employment in other branches while those who won’t will be helped in finding new jobs. But not a few of them are old-timers with a good number of years behind them so it would be very difficult to find jobs.

Early this year, Robinson’s Mall in Fuente Osmeña experienced a similar fire outbreak that also affected a nearby hotel. While we could only be relieved that there were no casualties, residents should reasonably expect the Cebu city government to provide adequate equipment and training for their fire- fighters.

As it is, they content themselves with aging equipment loaned out by the national government and had to watch volunteer brigades with superior equipment do a better job than they do. Even if it’s not their direct responsibility, city officials should spend for their firefighters, who do a heroic job despite their limitations.