Fr. Jing Garcia shows the belongings he was able to recover from his room in the seminary. MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 21 June) – A fire razed the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) seminary formation center in Barangay Catalunan Grande, Davao City Thursday morning, leaving nothing except some pieces of clothing and select liturgical objects.
The initial investigation showed that an electrical short circuit caused the fire.
The Bureau of Fire Protection estimated the damage at P300,000.
On Friday, MindaNews saw Fr. Jing Garcia, parish priest of Babak Parish in Samal Island, trying to find what was left in the building after the fire that burned six rooms, including his.
The building had a recreation room, library, and guest rooms.
Garcia said he was in Babak Parish when the fire broke out, and he received the news just after his daily mass there.
The burned recreation room and library of the seminary. MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA
He then decided to go to the seminary to retrieve whatever was left. He would usually go to Davao City on Mondays, his days off, but not now after his “second home” got razed by fire.
“I recovered some clothing, some liturgical objects, but many were burned,” he said in the vernacular.
“Mga stola, libro, gamayng sanina pang-misa. Ang uban, sunog gyud. Mga ubang gadgets, rekisitos, sunog pod (My stola, books, a few clothes I wear during masses. The rest were really burned. Some gadgets and important papers were also burned,” he added.
In a spot report sent to MindaNews Friday morning, the BFP said the fire gnawed most of the formation center in Sitio Soriano Curvada 1, Barangay Catalunan Grande.
The fire started around 11:00 a.m. Thursday and was suppressed at 12:20 p.m.
The report said a certain Jemuel Azura narrated that while he was cleaning at the chapel area, Fr. Ernesto “Loloy” Salvar shouted that smoke was coming from the second floor of the building.
Meanwhile, caretaker Cocoy Ontolan told MindaNews that “since the building is old plus most of them were made of light materials, the fire spread quickly, causing six rooms to burn down.”
The initial investigation by the fire department also revealed that the fire started in the recreation room.
Ontolan affirmed the report, saying he heard “popping sounds,” apparently from the television in the recreation room.
The belongings of the other priests were also lost in the fire.
“Father Salvar’s identification cards were burned. During the fire he wanted to recover other things but we stopped him so he was just there, watching the building burn. He was also scared for a while when the media wanted to interview him),” Ontolan said in the vernacular.
According to the SVD website, the burned building used to be the home of young seminarians during their first and second year of studying philosophy, before proceeding to Christ the King Mission Seminary in Manila for the second part of their academic discipline.
However, it later served to house and accommodate SVD priests based in Davao City and their guests. (Ian Carl Espinosa/MindaNews)
