Houses burned down: Accident or Premeditated

If the Central Business District in Quezon city will be located on the same site as the fire then it's most likely to be intentionally burned. But that's arson and they could be punished for that. And if that is true, how can they do that to those poor people. Not only were their house burned but also all their belongings. They could have demolished their houses, because they can still have their belongings. But burning the place. . . how cruel.

I think big fires happen more on informal settlers or depressed areas simply because there is no good planning on this places, let me site the reasons, houses are in close proximity so fire spreads rapidly, since there is no planning, almost all have small streets or none at all but simply small passes making it impossible for fire fighters to enter, most houses are built from light materials, there is no electrical planning so most houses do not have fuse boxes or circuit breakers so they just tap anywhere they want with sub standard wires, worst most put up jumpers or illegal connections that over load the systems, most even do not have electricity so they use candles, increasing the risk. Most informal settlements rely on a common deep well that make reserving water very difficult, they find buying and reloading fire extinguishers a luxury. Although there is a possibility of an arson theory, I would not stick to it cause this happens at random on all informal settlements around the country, another thing, don't the politicians use this people for votes to win an election?

In squatter places like these it is always said that the fires are premeditated so that the informal settlers will leave the place. But knowing these informal settlers, no matter how many times you burn their place down, they will not leave. Why? It's because they have no place to go. The relocation sites that the government offers to them they refuse flat out for so many reasons. And firefighters can only do so much to quell fires in places like these because the fires spread so fast because of the materials used for the houses. It's hard to say that the fires are premeditated. You have seen how crowded these places are, and most are made from makeshift materials. In a small room where there are usually around eight to ten people, that is also where they cook. I also know that the electric wires are a nightmare in these places. I am not discriminating here. I have been to such places and whenever I leave I always ask myself why these people still have so many children when their living conditions are so poor. They are offered relocation sites where they may have decent dwellings but they either sell these or refuse because they don't want to leave.

Hi. sweet_pea. I would have to be following this story profusely to know what is really going on. I can tell you that this is no accident. Someone is causing this. But whom? And why? And we already know the reason why: They are evil, plain and simple. It is so sad. The government needs to get strict security enforcement from this terror. It is very sad that people just want to destroy each other. My prayers go out to the families that have lost their homes.

We can't really tell. We will only know if there's truth to allegations that it's premeditated if someone involved will come out in the open and tell the public about it. Until that happens, I would surmise that all fires in the slum areas are caused by negligence of some of its dwellers. Personally, I think there's a chance that there could be people behind fires since it's more cost saving than to pay all those dwellers or even if you have to go to court to claim your land with squatters. There were rumors that some owners of business establishments would burn their own buildings to claim insurance. That's just a rumor though, but as they say, if there's smoke there's fire.

Hello, I am not a Phillipino, but in my opinion, someone commits arson because of many reasons. One blatant reason is what you said above, that is to evict the neighboring informal settlers. Second reason is to get insurance payment. With that said, the owner of a house who pays an insurance might deliberately burn his own house to get insurance payment. Do you get what I mean? If the insurance company is suspicious to the claimer (the owner of the house), they can report this fact to the police and the police will investigate this. Commonly, the police will soon know if the house is deliberately or accidentally burned down. The arsonist will be held guilty before the court.

I guess we will never know for certain, but the coincidences are so glaring. Each time the city government plans to relocate the informal settlers in order for the property to be used, fires always erupt. Personally, I think they are premeditated. It's a very convenient way to remove the shanties. I wish I could sympathize with the squatters, but I feel that they did it to themselves. They know it was illegal to put up shanties on any property that they don't own.

Hi Sweet, It actually occurred to me that it could have been pre-meditated but I felt that it was so evil of me to even consider it. But if we try to be realistic, it's actually easier to drive the informal settlers that way than by going through the process, coz as you said, more often than not they fight back. I just hope that the local gov't will be able to find a better option for these people so they can start their lives again.

That is really sad. And very 'evil' of business men to let people's houses down to get their new center built. I hope the houses have insurance. So that at least they could get back some measure of what they lost in the fire.

Actually it is easy to say that they set up such fire for some reasons like what you said and the possibility is there. Not only in Agham a few days ago also some more than 2000 families lost their house in the fire at Bahay Toro in QC also. We cannot pointed our finger to them (authorities) that fire was premeditated as I said the possibility was there. SO now what we can do is wait and see... see you around