SENATE COMMENDS FIREMEN FOR PUTTING OUT PARAÑAQUE BLAZE

The Senate has complimented firemen for their "efficient and professional response" in quickly putting out a fire that broke out at a handicraft shop, which prevented it from spreading out to nearby buildings and saved properties and lives.

Through a resolution it approved unanimously, the Senate commended the officers and personnel of the Bureau of Fire, District No. 3, the San Dionisio Fire and Rescue Group and civilian volunteer firefighters for successfully extinguishing the fire that gutted parts of the Bayan Handicrafts located on Roxas Boulevard and Tambo, Paranaque City at about midnight of April 30.

The blaze gutted portions of the establishment where its handicrafts and other products were housed and started to spread uncontrollably and threatened to eat up the adjoining houses and buildings.

In roughly l0 minutes after the fire broke out, volunteer civilian and government firetrucks, with their personnel arrived and they immediately began to professionally combat the fire.

"Their timely arrival and their professionalism and dedication to duty eased the tensions of the owners of the establishment and the occupants of the nearby houses and buildings," according to Senate Resolution 1046 introduced by Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban).

In a little over an hour after they went to work, the firefighters were able to extinguish the last burning cinder of the fire at the Bayan Handicraft Corporation.

Pimentel noted that the firemen could have done their job earlier but for the fact that an iron-and-wire fence put up by the Metro Manila Development Authority to control the flow of buses and jeepneys in front of the premises of the handicraft shop hindered the entry of their firetrucks into the premises of the burning structure. He said there was no reported loss of goods to thieves in the process.

"The good work that the firemen, especially the volunteer ones, do are often simply taken for granted, ignored and forgotten. But when things go wrong in the performance of their duty, firemen invariably get the opprobrium of the public in general," Pimentel said.

He said it is time that the representatives of the people in the Senate give honor where honor is due to the deserving firefighters.

Commended by the Senate in its resolution eight officer and men of the Old Parañaque Fire Fighter Volunteers led by Fire Chief Richmond Fabela; 11 officers and men of the LPGMA Parañaque Fire Fighter Volunteers led by Fire Chief Josel de la Rosa; members of the Filipino Chinese Fire Volunteers Association; six members of the San Dionisio Fire and Rescue Group; and 28 officer and men of the Bureau of Fire District 3 composed of Makati, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Pinas and Muntinlupa cities.