If even one of her employees died, Amor Pelenia’s butane canister-refilling operations would have been immediately shut down by the Cebu City government.
A circular of the Department of Energy bans the refilling of LPG in single-use canisters, but the prohibition is not enforced.
Even the the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), perhaps out of ignorance, said it has no legal grounds to file charges against Pelenia because she paid the medical bills of the eight employees who were injured in the accidental butane canister explosion in her home-based enterprise in barangay Kinasang-an Pardo, Cebu City.
Minutes after the explosion, the BFP and the city government were helpless while Pelenia ordered her employees to bring all the butane canisters out of her home and transfer them to a remote site in Balamban.
But what if, God forbid, they accidentally caused another explosion and set off a forest fire? With the El Nino heat and dry conditions, that could have triggered burning biomass that would foul the air to the point of a haze of ash.
Pelenia’s livelihood had no business permit.
It’s hard to understand why it was not shut down on the spot.
For the fire hazard alone, the enterprise of refilling LPG in tin cans that haven’t been subjected to quality control tests as a storage unit for LPG, is clearly an accident waiting to happen.
Butane cans should contain butane gas, not LPG.
Just look at the welded metal of an LPG tank, and think of the gas pressure inside that has to transferred to a puny 250-gram can.
What seems to give government agencies cold feet is the widespread use of LPG-refilled butane cans.
They’re so cheap and available, home makers, students and any budget-tight consumer would rather go to a sari-sari store to get one for P17 than pay P700 or more for an LPG tank.
To go after illegal refillers who serve a “phenomenal demand” of the C-D-E market, at the start of an election season, is to risk antagonizing communities and grassroot voters.
The lukewarm attitude just makes the Department of Energy (DOE) look inutile. Their constant reminders to the public not to patronize LPG-refilled butane canisters is leaking out of people’s ears.
Unless someone gets arrested, or a business gets shut down, convenience and complacency will trump public safety.
Shall we wait for a more dramatic explosion?
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama was right to question who’s in charge.
Now that an inter-agency committee, with City Hall officials are part of the effort to prevent another butane gas explosion, let’s see what political will Rama will wield in this challenge.
Would you rather keep people safe or save votes?
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
