Barge could have made a difference – Rama

FIREFIGHTERS would not have had a difficult time fighting the blaze that killed an 11-month-old baby girl and almost wiped out an entire community in barangay Ermita had the Cebu City Council approved the proposed acquisition of a barge which could have been used as a fireboat.

Mayor Michael Rama made this assessment as City Hall mobilized its agencies to provide aid to over 400 families who were rendered homeless by a fire that struck sitio Bato-Carbon Saturday night.

“The roads were not wide enough for the firetrucks. The availability of a barge could have diverted firefighting from the sea,” he said.

The mayor said since it was close to impossible for big firetrucks equipped with high-pressure pumps to penetrate the fire scene, the Cebu City Fire Station could have had loaded the firetrucks on the barge and fight the fire from the sea.

Rama said the P50 million barge, which his administration proposed to acquire last year, can also be utilized for coastal cleanup operations.

He said he will revive his proposal for the city government to acquire its own barge if ever he gets reelected.

Sitio Bato-Carbon has been placed under a state of calamity.

Barangay Ermita captain Antonieto Flores said the barangay council has approved the resolution Sunday evening which subsequently authorized the release of P220,000 from the barangay calamity fund to help the fire victims. The city government has likewise promised to dole out P10,000 cash assistance to each family.

Mayor Rama also instructed Alvin Santillana, operations head of the City Risk Reduction Management Council, to coordinate with the Kapisanan ng mga Broadkasters ng Pilipinas (KBP) Cebu Chapter in their effort to collect relief goods for the fire victims.

Arson investigators meanwhile are looking into the possibility that an illegal drug session caused the fire to spark.

“Daghan ta og gitan-aw nga posibleng hinungdan apil na nang naa kunoy nag-pot session kay suyopanan kuno ang balay,” FO3 Lowel Opolentisima said in a telephone interview. (We are looking into many angles among them is the possibility that embers from a pot session could have sparked the fire).

He said they already summoned Toribio Flores Jr., owner of the house where the fire reportedly started, to shed light on the fire incident. Flores’s daughter, Mary Claire, perished in the fire. /Correspondents Edison A. delos Angeles, Jhunnex Napallacan and Chito Aragon