The Fire This Time

Fat

e could hardly be less kind to the 2 million Filipinos estimated to live in the slums of Manila—labyrinths of squatter huts without electricity or plumbing and filled to their corrugated roofs with pestilence and vermin. Every once in a while, life there gets even crueler. Two Sundays ago, an incident occurred at Block 4, Lot 41, of a Manila shantytown on the grounds of the Bataan Shipyard & Engineering Co., at the home of Zaldy and Racquel Eusebio. Neighbors say the couple was quarrelling and Racquel threw a candle at her husband. The Eusebios say a candle simply fell over. Either way, a conflagration began. The slum extends well into the fetid shallows of Manila Bay, and neither the fire department—which dispatched 84 trucks—nor the coast guard could penetrate its twisted lanes.

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When the flames neared the dwelling of Sonya Graoso, a 44-year-old housewife, she tried to flee with her daughter and two-year-old twin granddaughters. A neighbor offered her a boat to get away—for a fee she couldn't afford. Another neighbor with a boat took pity on the family, but thieves stopped them and demanded loot. "My daughter had bought new shoes—the only pair she owns—last Christmas," says Graoso. "They were snatched from her bag."

The fire raged for nine hours, destroying 2,500 dwellings and leaving 22,000 people without shelter. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo rushed to the scene in jeans and a shirt and ordered the survivors to be evacuated to government buildings. (Arroyo, who is running for election this year, also distributed T shirts emblazoned "Gloria loves me.") Hours later, she and Manila Mayor Lito Atienza announced their intention to build a settlement for the victims. When—and if—that will happen is unknown.

In the meantime, some families have moved into surrounding slums. Hundreds of others are jammed into tents just meters from the scene of the blaze. Flora Naig and her five-month-old daughter are living with 40 relatives and former neighbors in a five-meter–by–five-meter tent, and she hopes to sell some old clothes to buy milk for her infant. Naig has survived two previous fires in the past two years, both of which destroyed her residence. "We keep on being tossed around," she says, "from one corner to another."