DAVAO CITY — Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio backed off from direct involvement in the ongoing investigation of the fire that razed down the homegrown New City Commercial Center (NCCC) after some people questioned her integrity and impartiality.
“I don’t want to talk about the investigation,” the city mayor told reporters in a press briefing Friday at City Hall. The mayor is also going on leave from December 30 to January 1 to attend to her children.
But the mayor assured of the city’s cooperation. The city’s Central 911 and the City Engineer’s Office (CEO) will be on hand to give information on the city’s response operation and building plans of the NCCC should the national government’s investigation team need them.
This as Duterte-Carpio backed off from her earlier offer to include the city government representation in the special multi-agency task force investigating the mall fire incident.
She said some people have questioned her integrity and impartiality on the NCCC Mall investigation given her commitment as an endorser of Choice Mart, another brand of the NCCC supermarket. There was a suggestion for her to inhibit from the investigation.
“For the record, I am not part of the investigation team. I have never presented myself to investigate the mall fire and under normal circumstances, a City Mayor does not sign fire investigation reports of the BFP,” Duterte-Carpio earlier said in a press statement.
“Nobody can question how I did my work as Mayor in helping the family of the victims, the BFP (Bureau of Fire Protection, the NCCC, and SSI (Survey Sampling International) officials,” the mayor quipped.
Duterte-Carpio pointed out that the staff and the City Social Services and Development Office (CSSDO) handled everything during the evening of December 23 to the present prevented chaos and hysteria among the victims and Dabawenyos in general.
During the press briefing Friday, Duterte-Carpio already asked media to direct all their questions on the investigation to the team looking into the incident.
The special multi-agency task force composed of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) as the lead agency, the BFP national office, Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO), the Philippine National Police (PNP) has already started its investigation into the incident and already visited the site on Thursday.
DILG Assistant Secretary for Public Safety Nestor Quinsay said BFP team continues to look for pieces of evidence to determine the cause of the fire.
He said each member-agencies are closely coordinating in gathering witnesses who were actually inside the mall when the fire incident happened on December 23.
Quinsay is looking at two to three weeks to complete its investigation.
Part of the investigation is the alarm system of NCCC mall.
BFP Davao Fire Marshall Supt. Fritz Alagano said the cause of the fire will be one of the issues that will be investigated by the Task Force created to investigate the fire incident.
The other issues are the failure of the water sprinklers and the alarm.Alagano said SSI has its own emergency alarm.
BFP Davao has already submitted all reports to its national office prior to the arrival of the investing team in Davao.
A third-party investigator is still expected as offered by Duterte-Carpio. This will be recommended by the families of the victims but professional fees will be covered by the city government. (Lilian C. Mellejor/PNA)