Dog wakes up family in time to escape fire

Carlos Paller pets the family dog Regine a day after she woke them up when their house caught on fire last Saturday. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)

If not for their pet dog, the Paller family would have burned alive in their home in  sitio Laguna, barangay Cogon-Pardo, Cebu City last Saturday morning.

Carlos Paller said it was their AsPin (Asong Pinoy) canine named Regine that  woke them up by knocking on their bedroom door just as their house caught fire.

“Ang iro ang unang nakamatikod sa sunog. Iyang gidasmagan ang pultahan ug mura mi niya gipukaw (It was the dog who noticed the fire and he knocked on the door, trying to wake us up),” the 68-year-old Paller said. He woke up his wife Norma and his children.

One of his sons, Carlito, assisted Norma, a diabetic, out into the streets while still in his boxer shorts.

They only saved TV sets and nothing else as the fire burned down their two-story house and 19 others in their neighborhood.

When Cebu Daily News visited the fire site, the elder Paler was sorting through the debris.

Evacuation
His wife is staying in the house of one of their children in Mandaue City while Carlito was staying with his sister who’s renting a space in barangay Bulacao.

At least 36 families or 74 persons were affected by the fire but only 20 families are staying in the identified evacuation site in the Pardo Elementary School. They wanted to just stay within the fire site.

Paller said they want to stay in the area. “Napabalhin na mi sauna maong di na mi ganahan mobalhin na sad. Diri na lang mi, bahala I-reblock ang area okay ra basta diri lang mi (We have been asked to transfer before that’s why we don’t want to transfer again. We’ll just stay here even if the area will be re-blocked it’s okay as long as we’re still here),” he said.

The Paller family used to stay in barangay Kamagayan but they were asked to evacuate the area in 2000. Since then, they’ve been living in Cogon Pardo.

Carlos, a retired barangay tanod, now does carpentry and masonry jobs for P400 a day but he doesn’t get hired often.

Cebu City Hall’s Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) has started handing out packed meals to the families since Saturday.

“Hopefully by Monday, we can start giving financial aid as well as the housing materials,” DSWS chief Ester Concha said.

The city usually gives P10,000 to each family whose house is destroyed by fire while P5,000 is given to those with damaged homes.