A house burned down in Toledo city with two boys trapped inside, unable to open the front door which was locked.
Their parents had stepped out to continue a domestic argument, and didn’t know about the fire which broke out past 10 p.m. on Friday until neighbors told them the house was in flames.
It was too late to save the children.
By the time fire fighters, arrived, only embers of the house and charred remains of 2-year-old Alexander Borgador Jr. and his 5-year-old brother Harvey were found in barangay Sam-ang.
The boys had been left sleeping at home when the couple Alexander Borgador and his wife Geovelyn stepped outside to continue their argument.
“Geovelyn said she let her children sleep and locked up the house while she went after her husband,” said Senior Fire Officer Constancio Alcover Jr. of the Toledo City Fire Department.
The father earlier said he would buy tuba or coconut wine at a store about 50 meters away.
Alcover said the couple also kept a dog and cat which could hav knocked down a kerosene lamp and set the house on fire.
The parents had been arguing about their plans to expand the small house.
Alexander wanted to drink tuba but Geovelyn tried to stop him because he was drunk the night before. The husband went off to drink tuba at the neighborhood store downhill.
The fire station received the alarm at at 10:15 p.m. by the time firemen reached Borgadors’s home which is nine kilometers from the city proper, they found the remains of the children and mbers of the still burning house.
The children were found near the door of the house, indicating that they had tried but failed to open it.
Geovelyn told him a house pet may knocked down a kerosene lamp.
The couple did not immediately go home until their neighbors told them their house was on fire.
Property damage was pegged at P20,000. The vigil wake for the children was held at the barangay chapel yesterday. With Correspondent Gabriel C. Bonjoc