Never again, again

FIRE in a factory in Manila raged out of control on May 13th and killed dozens of people, very many of whom would have been able to escape from a properly designed building. So the fire also served as a reminder: that the Philippines’ reputation for being disaster-prone is due at least much to man-made catastrophes as is to the typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have killed thousands in recent decades. If the response of politicians and public institutions to this fire turns out to be anything like their response to comparable calamities in the past, the reminder will soon be forgotten.

The Philippines has become much too accustomed to the sight of corpses lined up in rows after a disaster. The cause this time was a blaze at the plastic-slipper factory operated by Kentex Manufacturing in Valenzuela, in the north of Manila. Witnesses reported that a spark from welding work ignited the fire. The flames spread swiftly, fuelled by combustible materials used to make cheap footwear. Most of the dead were found on the second floor of the factory, where they appear to have become trapped—apparently by metal bars, criss-crossing the windows and wired together.

Afterwards the community hall nearby was turned into a temporary mortuary; there the steady stream of body bags containing charred remains seemed endless. By the afternoon of the next day, the authorities had counted 72 victims. But even then not all of the missing had been found.

In the immediate aftermath, questions were asked about the factory’s adherence to the law on occupational safety and fire precautions. The police’s deputy director-general, Leonardo Espina, said whoever was at fault would face charges. A spokesman for the national government, Herminio Coloma, said the records showed that the factory had been compliant with occupational safety requirements as recently as September 2014. Mr Coloma said labour and fire officials were working together “in ascertaining if there had been violations of safety regulations, so that proper accountability may be established”.

Officials have made similar speeches after other deadly fires in Manila in years gone by. In 1996 an inferno killed 162 people in the crowded Ozone discotheque, which had flouted fire-safety regulations. In 2001 a blaze at the Manor Hotel killed 74, many of them perishing behind barred windows. And fires are only a fraction of the story. Other lethal man-made disasters in the Philippines in the past quarter-century were due to ferries foundering; floods made dangerous by uncontrolled urban expansion; a stampede which crushed to death fans clamouring to see a television celebrity; and a mountain of rubbish collapsing on the scavengers who lived off it.

In the case of the Ozone disco inferno, 18 years later a court was able to convict two of the club’s directors and seven local government officials—they were found to have colluded in circumventing the relevant safety regulations—and sent them to prison. As the interval between crime and punishment shows, the wheels of Philippine justice grind slowly. So slowly that responsibility and punishment are rarely features of the familiar story; few of the people at fault in other man-made calamities have been held accountable. After each successive disaster, official undertakings were supposed to improve enforcement of the laws that would prevent any similar occurrence. But the expression “never again” seems to lose potency each time it is repeated.