Ibo fire displaces 672 individuals, destroys P400K worth of property

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Philippines— An artesian well is all that is left standing amidst what used to be houses in Sitio Tacan, Barangay Ibo here.

The structures that surround it were razed by the fire that broke out in the area at 12:55 a.m. Sunday, July 21.

A boy, one of the Ibo fire victims, washes his feet from the rusty artesian well at the fire site. (CDN Digital Photo/Rosalie O. Abatayo)

The City Social Welfare Services (CSWS) has logged, as of 2: 15 p.m., 223 families or 672 individuals to be affected by the fire. Some 98 houses were also tagged as totally burned while 2 are partially damaged.

Read more: Lapu fire burns homes in the coastal community of Ibo

The city’s fire department pegged the damage of the fire at P400,000.

Read more: Photo Gallery: Ibo fire leaves over 100 families homeless

The fire site in Barangay, Ibo, Lapu-Lapu City.

Roselle Saladaga, a renter in the area, was looking forward to going home to her hometown in Tabogon, northern Cebu, today. It was supposed to be her time to see her one-year-old son after a week’s worth of work.

“Nangandam unta ko kay mouli lagi sa amoa kay Dominggo unya sweldo gahapon. Ulion unta nako akong bata,” said the 24-year-old mother who works as a production worker at the Mactan Export Processing Zone (MEPZ).

(I was getting ready to come home since it’s a Sunday and it was payday yesterday. I would have gone home to see my son.)

Saladaga said she only saved some clothes which she already packed and supposedly bring to Tabogon.

With her her rented home gone, Saladaga said it had put her and the other fire victims in a tight spot, especially that most of them would have to resume to work tomorrow, a Monday.

“Problema mi ani kung asa matulog, asa mi mag-ilis ug maligo kay wala man gyud tanan,” said Saladaga.

(We don’t know yet where will we sleep, bathe and change clothes.)

For renters like Saladaga, moving into another home would be difficult since most landlords would require rent deposits and advances.

At noon on Sunday, Saladaga and the other fire victims sat on the sidewalks of M.L. Quezon Avenue across the supposed block of houses where they lived.

Barangay Ibo Councilman R0se Macasaol, who chairs the village’s Committee on Disaster Management, said they would shoulder the meals of the fire victims, at least, for the next three days.

Macasaol said they had yet to meet with the council to discuss if there would be a need to declare a state of calamity for the sitios.

She said that most of the residents in the area were renters who work in production companies in Lapu-Lapu City.

The lot in the fire site in Sitio Tac-an, she said, is a property of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA).

She said the residents would be temporarily evacuated at the barangay covered court and the Ibo Elementary School./dbs