Instead of the usual cheerful holiday celebrations, relatives mourned for the victims of the fire that hit an Ormoc City department store on Christmas Day.  This tragic piece of news was flashed all over the world, with dramatic footages showing a woman clambering up on the roof of a nearby building to save herself while hapless relatives and horrified onlookers watched as the raging fire swallowed up the building.

Charred bodies found inside the toilet indicated desperate efforts by victims to put out the blaze with water.  After this tragedy, what else can hit Ormoc?  In 1991, thousands were killed in just a matter of hours when flashfloods and landslides hit the city, triggered by the onslaught of typhoon Uring.  While many blamed illegal logging for the inundation, the flashfloods and landslides were undoubtedly caused by nature.  But, in this particular case, the tragedy was not caused by a natural disaster.

More likely, it was the negligence of the building owner who probably scrimped on costs and did not provide enough fire exits.  It looks like the one-storey building, which used to be a warehouse, only had one rear exit which was padlocked.  Apparently the owner, said to be a Taiwanese, ordered it locked to keep looters away.  Blame could also be pinned on the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) that is supposed to enforce PD1185 or the Fire Code of the Philippines.

An official of the BFP said they will investigate if the building complied with the National Building Code and whether it had sprinklers, fire extinguishers and other fire safety requirements.  In the first place, it's supposed to be the job of the BFP to ensure that buildings comply with requirements, with records readily available to show that these buildings were certified compliant with the provisions of PD1185.

So many fires have happened around the country in the last few days: in Divisoria, at a posh residence at Corinthian Gardens, another mall in Quezon City and in La Trinidad in Benguet.  Actress Chin-Chin Gutierrez lost her house in a two-hour fire, suffering injuries as she jumped from the second floor to save her sick mother.

A day after the Ormoc blaze, a fire razed several houses in Marikina while 300 families lost their homes in a fire in Muntinlupa five days before Christmas.  As in the Ormoc blaze, firecrackers are being blamed for most of these fires, but perhaps the high number of casualties could have been avoided if authorities were stricter in implementing laws.

For instance, zoning plans are not followed in many areas in this country.  Building owners do not adhere to standards regarding height, density, spacing and other provisions.  In many instances especially in lower end sections, residences are built wall-to-wall, while in some other places, houses have grills and other obstructions that become virtual fire traps later on.

Two years ago, speaker Joe de Venecia's 16-year-old daughter KC perished in a December fire that hit their home in Dasmariñas Village.  From the highest to the lowest sections of society, fires obviously make no distinction.  In the case of Speaker Joe de Venecia, he wanted to make sure that his house was secure, but the grills, bulletproof glass windows and a padlocked fire exit made it impossible to rescue his daughter.

One may also recall the 1996 Ozone Disco fire that killed 150 people, a tragedy that has been recorded as one of the worst in the country's history.  While these fires may have been caused by a number of reasons, more often than not, it was the negligence of the owners and the inspectors who were supposed to be strict in implementing the Building and the Fire codes of the country.

What happened in Ormoc is a clear case of negligence on all counts—negligence of the owner, negligence of the fire safety inspectors, negligence of authorities who should have cracked down on stores that had no permit to sell firecrackers.

Unfortunately, we only realize these things after a tragedy has already happened.  The recent spate of fires should be taken as a reminder to all that we have to follow the Fire Code strictly.  It has to be enforced not only in commercial establishments, but even in private residences if we are to prevent another tragic incident from happening all over again.

The good news about the coming year is that government is advancing the full payment of our $219.7 million debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  This is a good indication of how the economy is going, a development that sends strong signals to the international community that our economy is getting stable and stronger.  The effect may not trickle down the social ladder immediately, but the fact that we're paying this debt in advance will free up resources that can be used for infrastructure and other needed developments.

The tight fiscal reforms are starting to bear fruit, which goes to show that patience is indeed a virtue.  No wonder GMA was in such a good mood when I talked to her at the Christmas Garden Party hosted by US Ambassador Kristie Kenney at the US Ambassador's Residence in Baguio.  She was in high spirits, taking time off from her busy schedule and spending the holidays in Baguio with her family as has been their tradition.

The recent survey by the SWS also shows that 91 percent of Filipinos feel optimistic about the coming year, and it looks like GMA is part of that 91 percent.  Of course, there's no doubt that the OFWs, our so-called "new heroes" and saviors of the economy, are the main factors that have helped keep the economy afloat—but at what cost?  The recent report about a domestic helper gang-raped by 17 men in Kuwait is just an example of the sacrifices and the price our OFWs have to pay just so they could earn a living abroad.  Obviously, this cannot go on forever.  We should just take advantage of these OFW remittances while they last, and from there help build and sustain our economic growth.

Mike Arroyo was with GMA at the same garden party, and he was still complaining and bitter about the press.  Several media people have filed a class suit against the First Gentleman obviously, in retaliation to the string of libel suits he had filed over the last two years.  But I've always told Mike that this can't be helped, him being a public persona, and the best way is to just simply ignore it.  But having a hot blooded Spanish-Latin American strain in him like myself, he can't help, but file these libel suits in retaliation.

The only way to survive these vicious attacks is to set aside this hot blooded temper and have a spokesperson answer or deny these allegations.  Even I—at the height of the libel case filed against me and our late publisher Max Soliven and the nasty exchanges that happened at the time—have decided right there and then not to be angry and bitter about it.  Bitterness can only bring a person down.

And as Richard Nixon aptly said in his farewell speech to the White House staff when he resigned as president, "Others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you become bitter and hate them, and then you destroy yourself."  As one astrologer friend told me, 2007 will definitely be a better year for all of us, not a "bitter" one.

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