In the night of non-stop revelry, celebration, and hyped dancing with the beat of the hottest songs of the decade, hundreds of young men and women were amazed with the electrical sparks and firecracker-like explosions they saw and heard coming from the disc jockey’s booth. They had no idea what gruesome and hellish tragedy would happen to them in the next few minutes…
President Fidel Ramos visited personally the remains of the burned Ozone disco at
The disco was first named “Birds of the Same Feather” in 1980. It was changed to “Birdland” in 1986 before it became “Ozone” in 1991. It was operated by Westwood Entertainment Company, Inc. and was one of the liveliest discos at that time. Quezon City Mayor Brigido Simon approved the business permit of the disco and was renewed for four years by Simon’s successor Ismael Mathay Jr. It was located on
The disco was registered in 1992 as a “cocktail lounge and restaurant,” with a capcity to accommodate 50 people. It was later used as a disco and at the time of the fire, had as many as 350 customers.
By 12:30 a.m. of March 19, fire broke out inside the club, claiming the lives of 149 young men and women celebrating the end of the school year and availing the 50 percent discount in entrance fee.
The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and various media institutions all over the world labeled it as “the world’s worst nightclub blaze” after that of Beverly Hills Super Club in
In addition, the American-based National Fire Protection Association hailed the Ozone disco tragedy as fourth in rank in “the 10 Deadliest Nightclub Fires Since 1970”.
Initial reports said that 149 people, mostly teenagers, died inside. In the hospital that day, one critically conditioned survivor passed away. And 11 of more than 100 survivors sent to different hospitals for treatment died in the following days, totaling to 161 number of fatalities. Chief Supt. Carlito Romero, Deputy Director of BFP, said that there were about 350 in and out of the disco.
Of the dead, they were either burned dead, trampled to death in stampede or suffocated by thick smoke before the flames got in.
The building was already cleared of corpses, but still littered with burned shoes and clothes, broken soft drink bottles, furniture, and clumps of human hair when the then President visited of what remained from the disco.
“We must make sure that there is no recurrence of this incident,” he said, ordering local executives to inspect their own discos, theaters, and restaurants and to close down establishments found violating the building code and to immediately charge their owners.
The President created an interagency team that will investigate on the tragedy. An article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (dated March 20, 1996) said that the main task of the team is to pinpoint persons responsible for the building’s permission to operate despite lack of fire safety requirements. Interior and Local Government Secretary Rafael Alunan III headed the team and Defense Secretary Renato de Villa, and Public Works and Highways Secretary Gregorio Vigilar, as members.
“You better get the (disco) owners here for investigation,” The President said after viewing what remained of the fashionable Ozone discotheque. “If they refuse, I order their arrest.”
“I hold the local agencies accountable for this tragedy that claimed 150 lives. Their incompetence cost the lives of many young people who perished in so much pain,” said Senate Minority leader Edgardo Angara as the Senate will also conduct its own investigation and summon officials, including Mayor Ismael Mathay, Vice-Mayor Herbert Bautista, and the owners of the disco house, the Westwood Entertainment Corp..
The President placed
Hellish Nightmare
The President asked the investigators to invite Ozone’s disc jockey for questioning for he was reported to be the first to shout “fire”.
Marvin Lopez was operating the booth when he said he saw flames from wires above him.
“There was a sort of combustion because Ozone is a closed place. The flame was looking for an exit,” he said to The Manila Standard (article dated March 20, 1996) erroneously referred to as “Mervyn Reyes”. “Some people were just crawling. They had to stay low.”
Lopez recalled hearing “a small boom, just like that of a firecracker” before the fire broke out.
“I said… ‘fire, fire’. The others, maybe still shocked, were just looking… Then the music went off.”
Lopez and his colleague had grabbed a fire extinguisher in an attempt to put out the blaze they saw creeping along a side their booth.
They were horrified to discover that the fire extinguisher, which had been prominently displayed in a nearby cage with the marking “Break glass in case of fire,” was a dud. Its contents could not be released.
Panic struck among the estimated 350 revelers, urging them to head for the only door they know.
There were unverified media reports that a security guard thought the stampede inside the disco was caused by a quarrel and had deliberately shut the door, trapping many people inside, to prevent customers from leaving without paying their bills.
There was a first batch of survivors who went out of the club using the main door. Their accounts said they heard an explosion and later were watching the second batch of survivors running out of the club on fire.
Days after the incident, arson investigators believed that the explosion was the result of the “backdraft phenomenon”. In an article in the Inquirer, Romero explained, “The place is enclosed and the fire that’s slowly building inside is so hungry for air. So, when there’s a sudden rush of air the flames gobble it up and create a ball of fire. Usually this situation results in a fiery outburst with very high temperatures followed by a thundering explosion.
Inside, the ceiling burst into flames seconds after the lights went off. The mezzanine collapsed crushing those who were fighting their way out.
Susan Cabuslay, 17 at that time, was among those who tried to fight their way out of a place where there was no emergency exit.
“I couldn’t see the door because of the heavy smoke. People fought each other to try to get out and I was knocked down. I thought it was the end for me. But I struggled to get up.” Cabuslay narrated to Standard while being treated in
A survivor had his bright future already laid upon him but all gone because of the fire that claimed his good looks.
Rodolfo Mallari, as featured in Standard was well known among his schoolmates as the “dancer”. He is a member of the Mode dance group rounding around the disco houses and appearing in television shows.
Mallari was right on the dance floor when the disco lights fell on him. He suffered second- and third-degree burns all over his body.
Mallari’s schoolmates who visited him at the Ospital ng Maynila said his dance group was about to start as talents of a big recording studio when tragedy struck.
Out of 149 charred bodies beyond recognition, 64 were only identified later that day. Among them was Dennis Soriano, a car sales agent who was 25 at that time. Soriano was there to have an appointment with a client whose daughter was celebrating her birthday in the liveliest disco of that time.
“Survivors said that they saw him already went out but came back either to save someone or claim something he left inside,” Mae Arceo said, unsure of the truth for she was only two years old at that time. She knew about his father’s death from various relatives.
“They said that he suffered suffocation. His body was not burned and we were able to bury it.”
In an article from the Inquirer, a man was pointing at the Toyota Sedan car with the plate number TLD-276 as his friend’s. The car was found out to be owned by Soriano.
But 86 of the 150 were left unclaimed.
Susan Malolo, 35 at that time, cried like a baby as she and her husband went from one hospital to another looking for their only child Dorothy, aged 15.
According to Standard, Malolo said her daughter had beeped her father on his pager late on Monday to tell him she was at the Ozone celebrating a friend’s birthday.
“Papa, I am at birthday party. I will be home soon,” her message read.
Her father said his daughter also carried a beeper with her. Hardened firefighters lifted the blackened body of what looked like a teenage girl from under the rubble. As they examined it to see if it was a boy or a girl, a beeper fell off from her waist. Nobody could say if it was the daughter of the Malolos.
The bodies that welcomed the firemen as they entered the burned disco were all in front of a single swing pull-in type of door. The twisted, grotesquely disfigured bodies were piled five feet deep according to BFP.
“Bodies were badly burned that they stuck to each other or to twisted metal. Victim’s fingernails curled and bones were visible through charred skin,” An article from the Inquirer read.
In an episode of Case Unclosed, Dr. Raquel Fortun, forensic pathologist of the Ozone tragedy, called the burning of the bodies as “post-mortem”. This is because they were already dead due to suffocation and stampede, but the fire was still ongoing, burning the bodies inside. This explained why they were only recognizable because of their jewelries and shoes and some bodies were already intertwined to each other.
Bodies were brought to the following funeral parlors:
Survivors were brought to
As of 5 p.m. of March 20, 80 out of 151 who died in the fire have been identified by the police. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) did this tedious task.
Dr. Alberto Reyes, NBI medico-legal division chief, said at least eight forensic experts and two dentists were sent to Ozone to gather the bodies of victims and subject them to autopsy.
Each victim had been assigned a “case number” for identification which contains all identifiable marks found from each victim like clothing, body marks such as scars, moles, tattoos, warts and birthmarks.
Belongings such as wristwatches, necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings were attached to the victims to be claimed by their relatives. However, this was difficult because some belongings of many victims were removed from their bodies.
Some relatives were unsure if the bodies pointed to them were truly those of their dead loved ones.
Reyes told the Inquirer that the only way to identify victims who were burned beyond recognition was through their teeth.
He added that if only NBI experts have mastered the use of DNA testing machines, the job would be easy and very accurate.
Investigation
Edgardo de los Santos, the first fireman who opened the door of the Ozone disco, narrated in Case Unclosed his experience years ago, “I tried to push [the door] until I managed to get in. When I got in… it was hot… many were dead. My estimate then was 40 [persons]. But when I managed to come closer, I saw three to four layers of bodies eaten by fire.”
An article from the Inquirer read, “Rescuers, overcome by the stench of burning flesh, poured rot-gut gin on the corpses to neutralize the smell and enable them to continue their work.
According to investigators, highly combustible materials like the rubber acoustic board, and cartons of egg trays used as Styrofoam materials all over the place quickened the spread of fire inside. Romero said that the fire was apparently caused by defective electrical wiring of neon lights or by an overloaded electrical circuit.
According to Inquirer, a vendor within the vicinity told arson investigators that Ozone had been experiencing brief brownouts for the past weeks before the incident allegedly because of the “blowing up of fuses.”
An “alternate exit” also proved useless as it leads to the closed backdoor of the adjacent City Friends restaurant. It also bore no sign that it was an emergency exit. Also, none of the fire extinguishers were used because of their defectiveness, making the officials of BFP to question officials of
Hermilo Ocampo, president of Westwood, rejected accusations that there were no adequate fire escapes and showed reporters what he said was a fire inspection certificate, issued by
“That fire exit has been there since five years ago,” he said to Inquirer. “We haven’t changed the place, we haven’t renovated the place, it’s still the same dance club.”
Ocampo explained that panic among those who were trapped inside was caused by darkness, heavy smoke, and no way out can be seen, urging them to head straight for the main entrance/exit. The door turned out to be a pull-in type but because of panic and stampede, they were not able to pull the door that was 1.7 meters wide and run along the narrow corridor after that serves as the reception area before they can finally get out of the inferno.
The aftermath
For the succeeding days after the tragic incident, the 150 number of fatalities rose due to the deaths of critically conditioned survivors being treated in different private and public hospitals.
Dr. Emmanuel Bueno of the East Avenue Medical Center’s emergency unit in
Bueno added that severely burned victims might have complications such as blood poisoning, pneumonia, kidney failure and heart disease in the next few days or weeks.
The tragedy revealed that the health department and state-run hospitals lack funds and facilities to accommodate victims. The calamity fund was not enough also.
In March 21, 1996,
The disco owners were also barred from leaving the country.
Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Alunan ordered the relief of five
Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of
The irregularities Belmonte found out are as follows:
- The mayor’s permit issued to Ozone was for a cocktail lounge and restaurant with a smaller customer capacity.
- The disco’s building permit, No. 92-60672, was issued in 1992 to Miguel Cancio of 3
- Its occupancy permit, No. 93-01392405, was issued in 1993 to lawyer Leonardo Saballero and his wife for their residence in
(Excerpt from an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, dated March 21, 1996)
On the issue of defective fire extinguishers, an official of BFP who refused to be named, said that the fire extinguishers could have been sold to the Ozone management by firemen moonlighting as sales representatives of a “bogus” extinguisher company.
He added that this practice was rampant not only in Metro Manila but also nationwide.
Based on an article in the Inquirer, a Qezon City official said that defective firefighting equipment were sold by firemen who inspect establishments as a compromise to those who violate the building code.
Critics said that this is a form of corruption that cost many young lives.
Ozone’s management, through Westwood spokesperson Desiree A. Refuela, said the owners had no intention of leaving the country and were willing to face any investigation panel. It insisted that it “had faithfully complied with all the safety regulations.”
“We have not received a hold departure order and there is no need to issue any,” Refuela said.
As of 4 p.m. of March 20, Refuela said they had not yet received any invitation from any agency to appear in an investigation and only heard about it from news reports only. In the event that they do, Ozone management are willing to cooperate.
“They (the Ozone owners) are just as deeply shocked and shattered as anyone else. It was clearly an accident and nobody wanted it to happen.”
The following day, March 21, at 3 p.m., Hermilo Ocampo was accompanied by lawyers when he presented himself to Senior Supt. Hercules Cataluña, director of the Central Police District Command, at
The investors of the disco pointed Ocampo and his wife to be the ones whom to be blamed by the public for the tragedy for they were only “mere investors”.
In a statement, Ocampo said that the Westwood Entertainment was willing to extend financial aid to the families of the dead and injured, the questions of how much and how many would be compensated were not answered.
He refuted the media reports about an alleged security guard who media said locked the main door with the thought that what was happening inside was a quarrel.
“Nobody in his right mind would do that,” said Ocampo. “We are asking for forgiveness… It was a freak accident no one would wish to happen.”
On that day also, the Central Police Command (CPD) filed criminal charges against the five owners of Ozone disco and six
They were charged with reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide, multiple frustrated homicide and serious physical injuries.
The offense, which can be bailed, constitutes a violation of two laws – the Building Code (Presidential Decree 1096) and the Fire Code (PD 1185).
Under the Revised Penal Code, the said offense is punishable with a jail term of up to six years.
March 22, Friday, the committee on urban planning, housing and resettlement chaired by Sen. Gregorio Honasan and the committee on local government led by Sen. Vicente Sotto III conducted a Senate hearing.
What happened was the famous buck-passing of
According to Mayor Mathay, he had no direct hand in processing the applications of business permits for it was a delegated authority. Also, he said that all business permits and licenses for Ozone were issued before he became mayor on June 30, 1992.
According to BFP, the responsibility of inspecting proposed establishments before they become operational falls to the city engineer’s office. But Alfredo Macapugay, city engineer, disclaimed any responsibility for the tragedy.
Macapugay said that it is the duty of the BFP to inspect proposed establishments if they have adequate exits.
Macapgay also insisted that a permit is renewed after another inspection. Ozone disco has been inspected thrice, most recent was in Sept. 25, 1995, in which no violations were reported.
The issuing authorities at the time, he said, were architect Alfredo Zamora and Insp. Renato Diaz, chief of the inspection section.
Investigators said the renewal of the license and permit should not have been approved if there was proper inspection of the joint.
DILG suspected that money must have been involved in the illegal issuance of permits. They also found out certain irregularities in documents pertaining to the renewal of Ozone’s license and permit.
They said that the documents since 1991 to 1995 granting the blazed disco the permit to operate bore signatures of Patricio Dumlao, chief of business permit and licensing office, “of different types and styles.”
Mathay claimed also that the disco was just overcrowded. But technical experts who investigated the origin of the fire agreed “with finality” that the fire was caused by circuit overload, meaning the number of electrical wirings did not match the number of electrical gadgets used for the place.
Senior Supt. Bonifacio Garcia, BFP Deputy chief, said the short circuit originated from the ceiling beside the disc jockey’s area and triggered a fire which quickly ate up all combustible materials in the ceiling, including the acoustic boards.
Inspector Arthur Dean, BFP Fire Safety and Enforcement Division, said that it had been
Despite the succeeding inspections done by certain officials in the club, the mayor’s office never received reports on inadequate fire exits from the BFP.
As the investors of the disco blame Ocampo and his wife, the latter pass the blame to their resident managers, Jose Yarisantos and Cris Espina, who were believed to be among the fatalities.
“My official function did not require me to be present at all times, hence, I delegated to some of my responsible officers, particularly the resident managers, the day-to-day operation and management of the disco house, namely, Jose Yarisantos and Cris Espina, among others, who are also assisted by supervisors,” Ocampo said in a sworn statement.
As of March 25, 1996, 137 bodies out of 149 found inside the disco house were already identified and claimed by relatives.
Cristy Bustaliño, Cris Espina’s widowed mother, told the Inquirer that his son was innocent.
“My son was only marketing assistant, and his role was in the promotions aspect. Why blame him on safety matters?”
According to legal experts, as cited in an article in the Inquirer, the 11 charged with reckless imprudence only face a maximum penalty of six years in prison if found guilty. They will also hace fines and a year in jail for violation of the building and fire codes.
Mass Grave
The death toll reached 159 as of March 26, 13 were left unclaimed.
During that night, a mass presided by Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin was conducted at the
Sin said, “the tragedy was a case of ‘quick profit’ winning over humanity, of business savings over safety, of bribery over duty and of death over the lives of people.”
A procession first was done that night that silenced music lounges and clubs along
Along the route, residents placed lighted candles outside their houses. Some people wore black and carried framed photographs of their loved ones who perished in the fire.
The following day, a mass grave at the Himlayang Pilipino served as the resting place of the unclaimed corpses. They were placed in individual plots with memorial markers.
The organization Justice for Ozone Victims, Inc. was also formed following the course of the said events.
The End
There were at least 50 establishments nationwide that were suspended after being inspected by different local governments after Secretary Alunan ordered such.
The number of fatalities stopped in 161.
The Supreme Court finally gave its verdict in March 16, 2001, as the tragedy was approaching its 5th year anniversary. Ramno Ng and Hermilo Ocampo were found guilty. Unfortunately, they were able to bail their way out of prison. They were obliged to pay 25 million pesos for the families to be compensated. However, due to the filing of bankruptcy of Westwood Entertainment, only a portion of the said amount was paid.
Relatives of the victims, led by the JOVFI, headed by Joseph Stephen Santos, have complained not just of the slow pace of justice but also of being “shortchanged” because of the light sentences meted out by the court.
Charges were also filed against officials of the
Up to the present the site where the Ozone Disco was located has never been refurbished for commercial use. Due to the horrific nature of the event, numerous instances of paranormal activity in the area has been reported. Nearby tenants have reportedly seen faint dancing silhouettes as well as disco music coming from the venue in the evening. The place has also been visited several times by the Spirit Questors at the request of the JOVFI.
Whatever it may b—a gossip or not, the once lively place that used to heat up Manileños really gives the creeps to those who passes by it. Whether there were ghosts there or not, all those 161 young people burned to death need our sincerest prayers.
For there in the disco named “Ozone”, the heat of the sun penetrated the skies and scorched many people, lighting the fire that was to be remembered forever#
No comments:
Post a Comment