Some 20 houses were destroyed Monday night in an hour-long fire that struck a Mandaluyong City neighborhood, where residents later vented their ire on a man suspected of causing the blaze.
Nursing a broken jaw and bruises all over his body, 46-year-old Pedro Sinapuelas remained confined in the hospital on Tuesday as authorities prepared to charge him with arson.
Insp. Francia Embalsado, chief of Mandaluyong’s arson investigation unit, said the fire started at 10:40 p.m. while Sinapuelas and his wife Malou were having a quarrel inside their house on Block 37, Acacia Lane Extension, in Barangay Addition Hills.
Before the fire started, Sinapuelas was heard by the neighbors threatening to set his house on fire.
Minutes later, flames quickly spread across a row of houses and destroyed some P200,000 worth of property, investigators said.
A resident, Godofredo Mangubat, suffered cuts and burns while trying to save his family’s belongings, Embalsado said.
Sinapuelas was seen fleeing the area, armed with a knife, during the fire. But an angry mob gave chase and eventually cornered him.
He stabbed a man in the back in the ensuing scuffle, before he was disarmed and severely beaten up.
Authorities have yet to locate the alleged arsonist’s wife. “We would like to ask her about the fire but she has apparently gone into hiding,” Embalsado said.