Big seaside Tawi-Tawi village razed by fire

COTABATO CITY — A fire of still undetermined origin razed no fewer than a thousand stilt houses in the seaside Barangay Lamion in Bongao island town in Tawi-Tawi in the Bangsamoro region on Tuesday night.

Local executives in Tawi-Tawi, officials of different agencies of the Bangsamoro regional government and members of its 80-seat parliament in Cotabato City told reporters on Wednesday that the villagers displaced by the conflagration are now in evacuation sites in Bongao and in the campus of the Mindanao State University in the municipality.

Tawi-Tawi Governor Yshmael I. Sali and Rep. Jet L. Lim said emergency responders from the provincial government and local executives in Bongao are now attending to the needs of the villagers from Barangay Lamion.

Officials of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Cotabato City said their subordinates in the Bongao Municipal Fire Station, barangay officials and the Bongao Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office are investigating what caused the conflagration that lasted for almost six hours.

BFP regional officials and Brig. Gen. Jaysen C. De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, relayed to reporters on Wednesday that the fire destroyed no less than a thousand stilt houses.

“Our units in Tawi-Tawi are helping in relief works for the residents who are now on evacuation sites,” Mr. De Guzman said.

Mr. Lim, who is spokesperson of the Bangsamoro parliament, told reporters that Bangsamoro Health Minister Kadil M. Sinolinding, Jr. and his counterpart in the region’s social services ministry, Raissa H. Jajurie, have mobilized relief workers in their provincial offices in Tawi-Tawi to embark on humanitarian interventions for thousands of villagers affected by the disaster. — John Felix M. Unson