DAVAO: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed Tuesday to get to the truth about a blaze in his home city that killed 37 call center workers.
He said he made the promise during a meeting on Monday night with the families of those killed in a shopping mall fire in the southern city of Davao.
“I assured them... that the truth will — let the truth come out,” Duterte said. “That is what they are asking for. Just the truth of what happened.”
The justice and labor departments have ordered separate investigations into Saturday’s blaze.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre has said his office would investigate with a view to bringing criminal charges.
A spokesman for Davao City mayor Sara Duterte, the daughter of the president, also quoted her as promising to press charges if warranted by the results of the investigation.
The fire broke out in the four-story NCCC Mall shortly before it opened to shoppers. But it killed 37 people working in a 24-hour call center for US-based market research firm SSI on the top floor.
At a Davao hospital Tuesday families of the dead waited in a silence broken only by occasional sobs as government workers tried to identify the charred remains before releasing them to relatives.
Social welfare officers said that so far, five bodies had been turned over.
Rhen Muyco recalled the last words his 25-year-old daughter Renzi Nova spoke to her family as the fire raged Saturday.
“Ma, there is a fire here. If something happens to me, I love you all,” she said by mobile phone.
Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello said Tuesday his office was launching an inquiry separate from the justice department’s investigation.
“We just want to find out the cause of the fire and if there was compliance with safety and health standards,” he told AFP.
The Associated Labor Unions said the high death toll and the extent of the blaze suggested that rules on fire exits, sprinkler systems and other safety measures had not been followed.
Mall administrators have denied that fire exits were inadequate or blocked.
Deadly blazes occur regularly in the Philippines, with fire safety rules often disregarded due to corruption or exploitation.
The fire was just one of a series of tragedies that turned the usually festive Christmas season in the Philippines into one of grief for many.
At least 240 people were killed, with over a hundred still missing, when Tropical Storm Tembin struck the country’s main southern island of Mindanao on Friday, causing floods and landslides throughout the weekend.
On Monday 20 people were killed in a road accident in the northern Philippines as they headed for a traditional Christmas mass.
Philippines’ Duterte vows to get to truth of deadly mall blaze
Philippines’ Duterte vows to get to truth of deadly mall blaze
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
