Palace orders assistance for kin of Pinay Iraq fire victim

Malacañang on Saturday ordered the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to extend full assistance to the family of Maricar Cente, the Filipino engineer who died in a hotel fire in Iraq early Friday. Presidential Communications Group official Herminio Coloma also said Malacañang expects the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to address other possible concerns of the Cente’s family. “Kasama yan sa mandate ng OWWA ... Tiyak ko gagawin ito ng OWWA at tinututukan ito ng ating DOLE (It is part of the OWWA’s job. I am sure the OWWA will do its job, as will the Labor Department)," Coloma said on government-run dzRB radio. Cente was among the more or less 40 people who were killed in a fire that hit Hotel SOMA in the northern Iraq city of Sulaimaniya early Friday morning (Manila time). Foreign Affairs spokesman Eduardo Malaya earlier said two other Filipino workers—Morelo Ermitano and Richie Salceda—survived the fire. Ermitano is recuperating at a hospital with a broken leg, while Salceda was discharged from the hospital also on Friday. Filipinos have been prohibited from working in Iraq since 2004 after a series of suicide bombing attacks and abduction of foreigners followed the US-led war. Despite the ban, a total of 10,000 to 15,000 Filipinos are believed to be working in Iraq, mostly inside heavily fortified US facilities. A report on Khaleej Times Friday afternoon quoted the chairman of Asiacell as saying that the fire’s casualties were from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. “We lost four engineers from our company, one of them a lady from the Philippines, and three of them men from Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Iraq," Asiacell chairman Faruk Mula Mustafa was quoted in the report as saying. It added that the engineers from Sri Lanka, Philippines and Cambodia were visiting telecommunications engineers. The Khaleej Times report also quoted hospital officials as saying four Americans were also among the fatalities, while two other Iraqi employees were injured. It added at least three of the victims died when they jumped from the windows of the hotel to avoid flames. The fire broke out at around 7:30 GMT Thursday (5:30 a.m. Friday in Manila). - KBK, GMANews.TV