Kentex fire: PNP to conduct free DNA tests on victims

THE Crime Laboratory of the Philippine National Police will be doing the DNA sampling for 72 victims of the massive fire that razed a factory in Valenzuela City for free.

Senior Superintendent Emmanuel Aranas, deputy chief of the PNP crime laboratory, said they will not ask any payment from the families who will give their specimen for the DNA testing.

He also belied reports that the process costs P150,000. “That’s not accurate. Just to give you an idea, when private individuals undergo the test, for example, paternity test, each specimen costs around P20,000,” Aranas told reporters on Monday.

“This time, we will not ask them to pay. But of course, we will ask from the regular budget of the crime (laboratory) to replace our expenses,” he said.

The PNP has started to gather tissue samples from the relatives of the victims. As of last Saturday, police already have samples from 87 relatives of the victims of the factory fire through buccal swab of the mouth. Of the 72 victims, three have been identified.

Aranas said the local government of Valenzuela City offered to help with the expenses in the PNP’s investigation but they have not discussed yet with Valenzuela officials the fees of DNA testing for the victims.

According to Chief Inspector Lorna Santos of the Crime Lab’s DNA branch, there are five stages of DNA sampling. The following are: specimen screening and sampling, DNA extraction, DNA amplification, DNA electrophoresis, and data review and database encoding.

Unlike in the previous accidents that killed scores of people, the crime laboratory will soon make the DNA testing faster this time to identify the victims, many of whom were charred beyond recognition.

“We will acquire a new machine that can give results in two weeks. We participated in the investigation of Ozone and Dona Paz tragedy when we had no machine. Noong time na ‘yon, napakahirap pong mag-identify,” he said.

He said the machine has been “approved” by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI experts have also trained crime laboratory personnel for the use of the new equipment.