Kin of Isabela fire victims hit slow grind of justice

TUGUEGARAO CITY—“Don’t worry mama. I will be one of those in the top ten,” Estelita Viernes, 63, quoted her son as saying, before he kissed her goodbye as he boarded the bus for Santiago City in Isabela.

It was the last time she would see her youngest son alive.

“Naturally, I had thought that he was confident to land among the topnotchers (of the nursing board exam). As it turned out, he meant it differently,” said Viernes in tears.

Marlon Justin Viernes, then 21, was one of the 10 graduates and nursing review students from the University of La Salette (ULS) in Santiago City who were killed in a predawn fire that gutted the inn where they were staying on Dec. 19 last year.

They were to take the nursing board examinations on that day.

Also killed were five members of the Fondevilla family: Mildred Fondevilla-De Leon and her two children Caryl Anne, 13, and Josh, 6; Michael Norman and his wife Amybelle, who was then four months pregnant with their first child; and househelp Jennifer Agtarap.

The family-owned two adjoining buildings that served as their residence and also housed the Bed & Breakfast Pension Hotel, the Sunshine Motorcycle Parts and the PA’s Sunshine Marketing in Barangay Centro 2 here.

Of the inn’s 50 occupants that night, 34 people, including 29 nursing examinees, survived. But a year after the fire, the families of the victims have decried the slow grind of justice for their lost loved ones.

“It only reminds us that one year had passed, and we have achieved almost nothing. We are becoming victims all over again, this time, of the slow movement of justice in this country,” said Marlon’s father, Manuel Viernes, the leader of the victims’ families.

So far, no criminal charges have been filed against those responsible for the deaths of Viernes, Francis Carambas, Jose Julius Gadduang, Neil Jensen Lopez, Nelmar Galapia, Richard Allen Gonzales, Ryan James Malaki, Jerome Saet, Ronualdo Respicio, Hendeson Villelodevico, all residents of Isabela.

Lawyer Ronnel Nicolas, head of the Department of Justice-Department of Interior and Local Government (DOJ-DILG) fact finding body that Malacañang formed to investigate the incident, said he was not aware of any related criminal complaint filed before the prosecutor’s office or any of the courts here.

He said his office had received notice from the office of Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo that a complaint had been filed by the Interagency Antiarson Task Force before the DOJ in Manila in January, but they have heard nothing of it since.

In a 20-page report released a month after the tragedy, the DOJ-DILG panel recommended the filing of criminal charges against building owners Pepito and Araceli Fondevilla, administrative sanctions against fire and city officials led by Mayor Delfin Ting and ULS officials for civil liability.

It also noted the sheer lack of equipment of firefighters that prevented them from promptly rescuing the victims, many of whom were trapped and suffocated behind the building’s grilled windows and a blocked fire escape.

“We were expecting the local police to file charges. The panel I headed cannot initiate (the criminal complaint) because I was the designated prosecutor who will conduct the preliminary investigation, if ever one was filed,” said Nicolas, also the assistant regional state prosecutor.

Cagayan police director Senior Supt. Mao Aplasca said the local police has not initiated any criminal complaint because it has not been notified of the panel’s findings.

“If only we were furnished a copy of that report, and (the panel) recommended that the PNP will file the complaint, there would have been no reason for us not to have acted on it,” he said.

In May 2011, nine of the 10 victims’ parents filed a P22.5-million damage suit against the ULS, the Fondevilla couple and the Tuguegarao City government before the Regional Trial Court in Echague town in Isabela.

They also asked for P2.5 million in damages for each victim. (The foster parent of Carambas, Fr. Christopher Arellano, begged off as a complainant, being a member of the La Salette congregation and director of La Salette School in Ramon, Isabela).

They blamed the ULS for the alleged failure of its officials and instructors to look after the welfare of their examinees, the Fondevillas for operating the Bed & Breakfast without a mayor’s permit and the city government for tolerating the operations of the hotel.

For its defense, the ULS said it could not be held liable because at the time of the tragedy, the victims were no longer students of the university and thus no contractual relations existed between them and the victims.

The Fondevillas, on the other hand, said it was their son Norman Michael, who was among those killed, and not they, who owned and operated the hotel, who should be prosecuted.

The city government maintained that its officials and personnel committed no wrongdoing in the performance of their duties, according to court records.

During the Dec. 14 hearing, Judge Bonifacio Ong ordered the parties to submit their positions before the Philippine Mediation Center in Santiago City for a possible out-of-court settlement, as required by law.

“We are confident we will emerge victorious. The only question is ‘when?’” said Federico Abuan Jr., the families’ counsel.

The long wait for the filing of a criminal suit prompted the families earlier this month to engage a separate counsel, Tuguegarao-based lawyer Placido Sabban, who had just begun gathering pieces of evidence to determine who to implicate in the homicide charges.

Sabban said the parents, who are acting as complainants, had wanted a criminal case to be filed immediately, as a symbolic breakthrough as they marked the first anniversary of the victims’ death.

“Unfortunately, I had to tell the families that it cannot be done because of lack of time. We cannot risk filing a hastily-prepared complaint that may just end up in failure,” he said.

The Fondevilla couple expressed hope that compassion would prevail in the hearts of the victims’ families, saying the fire was “a tragedy that nobody wanted to happen.”

“What happened was painful for us, too. Sometimes people forget that we lost everything in that fire—our only two children, our only two grandchildren and a daughter-in-law, who was bearing our third grandchild,” Fondevilla said.