Househelp who set fire to house to face arson, homicide, qualified theft raps
Friday, February 24, 2012
THE Homicide Section of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) will file on Monday complaints of arson, homicide and qualified theft against the house-help, who admitted burning her employer's house at dawn last Wednesday.
The incident left the co-worker of suspect Aubrey Soria dead.
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Her mother Minda might also be charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly helping her escape.
"Dawaton nalang nako. Nagmahay sad gyud ko sa akong gibuhat (I'll accept whatever happens to me. I regret my actions)," Aubrey said.
Police found two cellular phones, a bottle of lotion, a perfume and cash worth P1,570 in her possession. She allegedly stole these items before setting fire to the house.
"I really liked the phone that's why I took it," she said in Cebuano.
She told police she lit some documents with a match inside the guest room.
Archie Arizo, owner of Arizo Manpower Services, Aubrey's agency, visited her yesterday at the CCPO detention cell.
Lack of clearances
He said they will not provide legal assistance to Aubrey since she is guilty.
"We don't condone what she did… it may send a wrong message to our clients," he said.
Arizo said Aubrey applied in the agency last Monday morning. She was sent to retired Army Col. Mariano Parcon Sr.'s house in the Holy Family Subdivision, Banilad, Cebu City that afternoon.
He said Aubrey only had a barangay clearance and didn't have a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and police clearance.
He said they asked the Parcons if it was okay with them that she didn't have an NBI and police clearance and they said it was.
Arizo said Aubrey was the fourth househelp that they had sent to the Parcon family.
He said Aubrey should have called the agency if she didn't like the posting instead of burning down the house.
The fire took the life of 50-year-old Cornelia Tagalog.
"Even though her body was burned to a crisp, we will maximize our efforts to autopsy it to check if there was foul play," said Homicide Section Chief Jul Muhammad Jamiri in Cebuano.
"I hope whoever is responsible will go to jail because her (Tagalog's) death was so sudden," said Juanito Yocte in Cebuano in a TV report.
Yocte was the victim's live-in partner.
CCPO Director Melvin Ramon Buenafe reminded employers to be cautious in hiring house help.
"We should always check the background of the applicants before hiring them, dili ta mokompyansa (we should not be complacent)," he said.
Structural damage during last Wednesday's fire was pegged at P50,000.
The Bureau of Fire and Protection received the alarm at 2:06 a.m.
Tagalog apparently asphyxiated before she could wake up and escape the flames. She occupied a room on the second floor.
City Fire Marshal Aderson Comar said they placed the fire under control in three minutes and put it out completely 45 minutes later.
Punishment
The Bureau of Fire Protection 7 said seven family members and three helpers occupied the house at the time of the fire.
Under the Revised Penal Code, a person who sets fire to a building, knowing that it is occupied by one or more persons at that time, faces a penalty of at least 12 years in jail.
At first, fire investigators had to figure out whose body they found in the ruins because two helpers were declared missing. They later confirmed the body belonged to Tagalog.
Aubrey was arrested 14 hours later, as she tried to escape to a mountain barangay in Minglanilla, Cebu.
Aubrey said she did not intend to burn down the house, but only to destroy her identification documents after she took some of Parcon's belongings.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on February 24, 2012.
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