It was a week of innocents meeting fiery deaths.
A teenager suffering from cerebral palsy died in a fire in San Juan City Thursday night, after he was left home alone by his sister who went to the police station to post bail for their detained father.
The San Juan fire department identified the victim as Elmer Abacay, 16, of Paraiso Street, Barangay Corazon de Jesus. FO2 Noel Binwag said Abacay died of suffocation.
Binwag said Abacay’s sister Jacky Lou left him alone in the house to go to San Juan police station and post bail for their father, Ronaldo, who was earlier arrested for figuring in a brawl.
The fire started at the Abacay residence around 5 p.m. and spread to two other houses before it was put under control an hour later.
Earlier this week, three minors died in separate fires in Manila and Las Piñas City, including a half-blind boy who was killed allegedly while “chained” to a bed by his parents for being unruly.
The Las Piñas police filed criminal complaints against the boy’s mother and stepfather.
City police chief Senior Supt. Romula Sapitula said Analou Satur and her live-in partner Bernardo Okomen were charged with homicide in relation to the Anti-Child Abuse Law in the city prosecutor’s office over the death of Angelo Malbas, 7.
“If he is a special child, all the more reason for the parents to give him full attention,” Sapitula said of Malbas, Satur’s child from an earlier marriage. The boy’s mischief or disability was no excuse for the parents to put him in chains, he said.
The boy died in the fire that razed his home and another house on Guadalupe Street, Fatima Subdivision in Barangay Zapote late Wednesday night.
“We were initially planning to file murder and parricide charges based on earlier reports that the house was intentionally burned. But we don’t have sufficient evidence yet to prove that,” Sapitula said. Nathaniel R. Melican, Niña Calleja and Rima Granali