Politics eyed as one motive
CALASIAO MUNICIPAL BUILDING FIRE
CALASIAO–The town’s residents will not be content with the promised standard investigation and are pressing for a deeper probe into the fire that razed the town’s municipal building and the Tesoro shrine to the ground at dawn on Monday.
While authorities are now investigating the fire, which started at around 1:30 a.m. and put under control at 4:00 a.m., suspicions are rife that politics could be behind the disaster that resulted in the local government’s declaration of a state of calamity in the town.
Accounting and electoral records were among those destroyed by the fire.
For most residents, however, the destruction of the shrine of Señor Divino Tesoro, an image of Jesus Christ in Spanish garment and said to have come from Spain, was rued as a big loss to the town.
The icon, visited by regularly by throng of pilgrims, is believed to have been washed away by a big flood from afar and drifted to the premises of the present municipal building. The cabesa de barangay at that time preserved the statue and built a shrine for it.
Devotees from Calasiao and other parts of the province mourned the destruction of the Señor Divino Tesoro Shrine.
The whole town is now under state of calamity since the fire displaced many municipal government offices, among them the mayor’s office.
Mayor Roy Macanlalay placed the total damage on the building alone at P72 million. The burned appliances, office fixtures, air-conditioning unit, office equipment and still undetermined volume of documents were estimated at P25 million.
Vice Mayor Ferdinand Galang, at the request of Macanlalay, summoned members of the municipal council few hours after the fire to an emergency session and approved the mayor’s proposal to declare the town under the calamity state because of the fire.
The same resolution asked President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro, Senate President Manuel Villar, House Speaker Prospero Nograles, Pangasinan Governor Amado Espino Jr. and 3rd District Rep. Rachel Arenas to help Calasiao in rebuilding the town hall.
Displaced municipal government employees are now cramped in a building at the back of the burned municipal hall.
Macanlalay said the town needs at least P100 million in order to construct a new municipal building and for this the local officials have proposed initially the realignment of the funds for a flood control project in Calasiao.
In effect, the town will prioritize the reconstruction of the municipal building over the flood control project,
He said the completion of their gymnasium will likewise have to be suspended.
Macanlalay assured devotees that the shrine of Señor Divino Tesoro will still be an inherent component of the new municipal building.
Macanlalay said he believes the regular devotion to the Señor Divino Tesoro will continue with the replica of the image.
“I was told by Mrs. (Lourdes) Fernandez, president of the Señor Divino Tesoro Foundation that they had already engraved a replica of Señor Divino Tesoro, carved out from a tree that fell near the shrine at the height of Typhoon Cosme,” Macanlalay said.
The fire at the municipal building occurred just a few hours after devotees held a feast in celebration of the ‘birthday’ of Senor Divino Tesoro.
The new image, a faithful replica of the original, is expected to be installed on the altar of a new shrine.
A municipal building caretaker, Wilberto Maningding, said the fire started in the middle of the second floor before it spread to different directions.
The municipal building is a pre-war structure made partly of wood and concrete. Macanlalay said the second floor of the building, where the fire was reported to have started, is made purely of wood.—LM
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