Kentex fire: House panel finds lapses on part of DOLE inspector

Aerial shot of the Kentex Factory in Valenzuela City, two days after it was gutted by fire on May 13. Screengrab of video by Rem Zamora/INQUIRER

The House labor committee investigating safety violations in the fire at a Valenzuela City a rubber slipper factory has found lapses on the part of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) inspector sent to assess the company’s labor standards compliance.

The panel chair, Davao City Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles, said the Labor Law Compliance Officer who inspected Kentex Manufacturing should have realized at the outset that its manpower provider, CJC Manpower Services, was not registered.

Some 72 people, mostly workers, were killed in the May 13 fire after they were trapped in the two-story building as big as a town mall.

“There were lapses on the part of the Labor Law Compliance Officer. Then and there, the inspector  should already have known that Kentex was tapping CJC Manpower,” Nograles said in a radio interview.

The LLCO refers to DOLE personnel assigned to conduct “Joint Assessment, Compliance Visit, Occupational Safety and Health Standards Investigation, compliance advocacies, and advisory services, and to hold conciliation and mandatory conferences,” among other functions.

“They didn’t check immediately that CJC was unregistered,” he said.

The House committee held its first hearing in aid of legislation on the Kentex fire on Wednesday, but none of the company owners showed up. ABC