‘City won’t hesitate to close non-compliant businesses’

The Visayan Daily Star | December 3, 2019

The Bacolod City government will not hesitate to enforce the closure of establishments that are not
compliant with business permits and other requirements that will allow them to continue their
operation in the city.

The City Legal Office implemented the closure of a hotel and two pension houses in Bacolod City Friday,
November 29, upon the recommendation of the Permits and Licensing Division of the Mayor's Office
following a joint inspection it conducted together with the Bureau of Fire Protection, and the Office of
the Building Official.

The said agencies, padlocked the Westown Hotel on Corner Luzuiaga-San Juan Streets, the Bacolod
Pension Plaza on Cuadra Street, Barangay 21, and Rainbow pension house on Mabini Street, Bacolod
City.

Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia said yesterday that after these establishments have been notified about
their non-compliance with the requirements, and if they still fail to comply, they will be issued a second
warning. If they still fail to comply, this will be referred to the City Legal Office for implementation.

City Legal Officer Joselito Bayatan, said earlier that these establishments failed to comply with fire safety
requirements of the BFP. Some have dysfunctional facilities like sprinkler systems that need repair and
maintenance, or lack of fire alarms so they were required to observe strict compliance.

"Our concentration is the compliance of the safety of their clients and customers which was required by
the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Office of the Building Official (OBO)," he said.

Bayatan said the OBO and BFP conduct regular inspection as a requirement before establishments could
be issued a mayor's permit.

"We ordered the closure of these business establishments and we issued the safety measures for their
corrections," Bayatan said.

He said the business establishments should comply with the requirements first, so they can operate
again.

"This is a continuing way of doing it and after this, we will shift into the boarding houses to inspect their
safety compliance," he added.

The two business establishments violated Article 67 of City Ordinance 565 or the Revised Revenue Code
of Bacolod City.

Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran said the processing of business permits could take about two months to
complete while it could only take about three days for businessmen to comply with all their
requirements except when there are violations that could cause the delay.

Last week…

Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia said the task force will dig deeper into the incident amid reports
that the fire was intentionally set off by several suspects.

But the Bureau of Fire declined to comment on claims of witnesses that a motorcycle parked in the
hallway at the ground floor of the pension house was lit which led to the blaze.

Leonardia said he is saddened by the incident that resulted in the loss of lives and damage to property.

He said that the building has a sentimental value to the city, as it was previously known as the Bascon
Hotel which is considered one of the pillars of the city’s tourism industry.

“We would like to dig into this,” Leonardia said.

Leonardia also called on the BFP and concerned government agencies to fully implement fire safety
rules to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.

“I even suggested to the [BFP] that they should keep a copy of the evacuation plan of every building in
the city,” he added.
The fatalities included pension house owner Christopher Java, his 12-year-old son Miguel and 70-year-
old mother Magdalena.

Also killed in the blaze was Java’s housekeeper Ronalyn Dacallo and front desk employee Arnold
Felomino.

Another fatality has yet to be identified as the remains were burned beyond recognition.

The Australian national who was reported to be in critical condition was identified as Paul Codognato
who remains confined at the Riverside Medical Center here.

Initial findings by arson investigators indicated that the fire started at the hotel’s ground floor hallway.

Damage to property was estimated at P8 million.

Gonzaga: Investigate the root causes

SunStar | December 3, 2019

‘TIS the season to be merry, and wary. With the recent spate of fires in Bacolod that has seen deaths of
children and adults, there is great need to be careful and watchful, especially in crowded, old districts of
the city, for onset of fire.

There are a good number of villages in Bacolod, mostly in downtown areas where a combination of old
structures, temporary materials made of wood, carton, and other makeshift materials (in inner city and
coastal poor villages), and dense purok/village population make their housing fire prone.

Walk around the inner city villages—across the regional hospital, back of SSS, Magnolia, around Banago
and many more puroks and you’ll see tangled Ceneco wires, meshed with telephone lines and cable TV.
In the old downtown area by Central market en route to Luzurriaga and Araneta Streets, you will see
buildings attached to each other, with ingenious mezzanine extensions and added dingy, upper floors
with hardly no fire exits. Remove their ceilings and you will see messy exposed electric wires without
PVC encasing. These buildings that have seen different city administrations date back to as early as the
1950s, some, even before the war.

One can’t help but ask, how do these buildings manage to escape what is presumably strict
implementation of Bacolod’s Building Code. Or is there one specific policy or provision covering these
historic, old buildings fronting the Central Market, going around Luzurriaga, and Gonzaga streets?

Then there is the issue of old boarding houses, and hotels (the tragic example of the weakness of
Bacolod’s Fire Protection Program was graphically witnessed by many Bacoleños with the recent burning
down of the old Bascon Hotel). In June 2016, forty-two out of the 140 boarding houses and dormitories
in Bacolod City were found to have violated the Fire Code of the Philippines. The inspection of boarding
houses and other business establishments is a year-round activity of the BFP since it is a prerequisite for
the issuance of business permits.

Common violations by establishment owners are failure to post the correct photo-luminescent fire exit
signages in their buildings, having locked fire exits, and defective sprinkler systems, or failure to install
one. The mandatory installation of prescribed sprinkler system for city buildings remain a ticklish issue
for building owners. Regarding this issue, the Fire Protection Management Office is mandated to
conduct annual fire safety inspections on boarding houses, dormitories and buildings in Bacolod, to
prevent and suppress destructive fire. While most establishment owners are aware that those who are
operating without any FSIC that in case fire breaks out in their establishment, they will be criminally
liable for any injuries or deaths to their occupants.

The FSIC or Fire Safety Inspection Certificate is a pre-requisite prior to the issuance of Occupancy Permit.
It signifies that the owner/administrator significantly complied with the standard requirements
recommended by the Fire Safety Inspector/ Fire Safety Plan Reviewer of the establishment. Herein lies
the “thorn” for most building owners for building permit, and cause for potential graft. For Bacolod
City’s “generic”—i.e., applied to all establishments, whether big, medium or small, requirement for
sprinkler system lends itself to subjective “interpretation” of the Fire Marshall.

Since I started actively participating in negotiations for the lease of property located in an old, but busy
section of downtown Bacolod four years ago, I became aware of thriving business linked with the yearly
renewal of business permits. I, myself, encountered this when a fire inspector came and checked out our
existing fire extinguishers. All three fire extinguishers of ours were found defective, and were given
assurance that if we buy the units from him for replacement, we are sure to have our FSIC released by
their office. Our business associate had his own close encounter with agents of the BFP. After repeated
refusal to subscribe to the prescribed contractor of a previous fire officer, having his own brand and
sprinkler system at a much lower cost, his whole building was “marked” with a sign of being unfit, a fire
risk.

I suspect that another modus operandi, applied to old establishment owners, and smaller businesses
unable to comply with the city prescribed system of sprinklers, are given leeway to execute Promissory
Form/Letter for Compliance, for “arbitrary fee”. These encounters point the need for the ongoing
investigations pertaining the recent series of destructive fires in Bacolod, for the tasked city officials to
investigate, to look at the fundamental root of the problem.

‘Don’t buy substandard Christmas lights,’ Negrenses told

SunStar | November 14, 2019

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Negros Occidental has reminded anew consumers in the
province not to buy substandard Christmas lights and other decorations.

Romel Amihan, senior trade and industry development specialist of DTI-Negros Occidental, said buyers
have to look for the Philippine Standards (PS) and Import Commodity Clearance (ICC) stickers to ensure
their safety.

Amihan said substandard items are prone to accidents especially fire thus, it puts at risk the safety of the
households.

“They should not purchase cheaper yet substandard products,” he said, adding that the safety of the
family should not be suffered over the price.

The DTI, in a memorandum, earlier said to ensure that uncertified Christmas lights and lighting sets will
not proliferate in the local market, all regional and provincial offices are enjoined to intensify the
monitoring and inspection of these products in the market.

There’s also a need to check their conformance to the requirements and guidelines set by the agency.

To protect consumers, the DTI has issued a list of certified Christmas lights manufacturers in time for the
Yuletide season.

The list, which can be viewed at DTI Bureau of Philippines Standards website [www.bps.dti.gov.ph],
includes the PS licenses and ICC of each manufacturer.

The PS and ICC certificates are issued to manufacturers or importers of mandatory products after they
have undergone checking and inspection for product standards compliance.

Those establishments caught selling and distributing uncertified Christmas lights under Republic Act (RA)
4109 or the Standards Law will be penalized with monetary fines and product confiscation.

Fire Code of the Philippines

Rule 2, Division 2

 Every building or structure, new or old, designed for human occupancy shall be provided
with exits sufficient to permit the fast and safe escape of occupants in case of fire or other
emergency. The design of exits and other fire safety construction shall be such that reliance
for safety to life in case of fire or other emergency will not depend solely on any single fire
safety construction. Additional safeguards shall be provided for life safety in case any single
safeguard is ineffective due to some human or mechanical failure.
 Every building or structure shall be designed, constructed, equipped, maintained and
operated to avoid danger to the lives and ensure safety of its occupants from fire, smoke,
vapor and fumes, during the period of escape from the building or structure.
 Every building or structure shall be provided with exits of kind, number, location and
capacity appropriate to the individual building or structure, with due regard to the character
of the occupancy, the number of persons exposed, the fire protection available and the
height and type of construction of the building or structure, to afford all occupants
convenient facilities for escape.
 Every exit of buildings or structures shall be arranged and maintained to provide free and
unobstructed egress from all parts thereof at all times.
 No lock or fastening device that would prevent escape from the inside of any building shall
be installed except in mental, penal, or correctional institutions where personnel are
continually on duty and effective provisions are made to evacuate occupants in case of fire
or other emergencies.
 Every exit shall be clearly visible. The route to the exit shall be conspicuously marked in such
a manner that every occupant of a building or structure will readily know the direction of
escape. Each route of escape, in its entirety, shall be so arranged or marked that the way to
a place of safety outside is unmistakable. Any doorway not constituting an exit shall be
marked to minimize its possible confusion as an exit. Likewise, passage constituting a way to
reach an exit shall be marked to minimize confusion.
 All means of egress shall be provided with adequate and reliable illumination.
 Fire alarm systems or devices shall be provided in every building or structure of such size,
arrangement, or occupancy, to provide adequate warning to occupants.
 Every building or structure, section, or area thereof of such size, occupancy and
arrangement such that the reasonable safety of a number of occupants may be endangered
by the blocking of any single means of egress due to fire or smoke, shall have at least two
means of egress remote from each other, so arranged as to minimize any possibility that
both may be blocked by any one fire or other emergency conditions.
 Every vertical way of exit and other vertical openings between floors of a building shall be
suitably enclosed or protected to afford reasonable safety of occupants while using exits
and to prevent spread of fire, smoke, or fumes through vertical openings from floor to floor
before occupants have entered exits.