HOUSE Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas on Wednesday blamed the police and security officers for failing to respond early to the June 2 Resorts World attack, saying the death of 37 casino employees and guests could have been prevented.
Fariñas said he was able to obtain copy of a Facebook Live video of the incident that showed the SWAT arriving at 12:36 a.m.
In the video, people said the lone gunman, Jessie Carlos, had exited the area but the police did not know it.
“The 37 [who died from suffocation because of the fires set by Carlos] could have been saved because the threat was no longer there,” Fariñas said in Filipino.
The wife of Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr., Mrs. Elizabeth Panlilio-Gonzales, was among the 37 people died in the arson attack.
Fariñas lamented the inability of the Philippine National Police to do what the Facebook user did to inform the public about what was happening inside the hotel and casino.
“That was very early. The whole world knew what was happening because they saw it on Facebook,” he added.
The Bureau of Fire Protection officer-in-charge Bobby Baruelo said the victims died in less than five minutes due to suffocation during the arson attack, but could have found their way to safety if they looked for nearby fire exits.
“It only takes two to three minutes for a person to become unconscious,” Baruelo said.
Baruelo was responding to the query of Zamboanga City Rep. Celso Lobregat, who said that toxic fumes containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide were produced by Carlos’ torching of casino tables.
“With continued inhalation of these gases, a person might die of suffocation or asphyxia after four to five minutes,” Baruelo said, defining suffocation as “the absence of oxygen in the brain.”
Baruelo said the fatalities could have lived had they managed to look for fire exits immediately.
“The location of the victims is quite near to the available exits based on CCTV [closed-circuit television] footages. We had a walkthrough in the area and the room where the bodies were found. There were two available exits near them,” Baruelo said.
“You can reach the exits in less than one minute,” Baruelo said. “It is unfortunate that the victims were trapped there for 20 minutes when the first fire broke out, when the baccarat tables were burned,” he said.
But RWM president Kingson Sian told lawmakers that Carlos made the fatalities believe that his attack was massive, and so they hid until they died of suffocation.
Lawmakers probing the incident spared Resorts World Manila owner Andrew Tan from testifying at the congressional hearing.
“The highest official of the corporation [Traveller’s Hotel Group Inc.] that owns RWM is its chairman of the board, David Chua Ming Huat. The committee will issue a subpoena to him. Mr. Andrew Tan is not an officer nor a member of the BoD [Board of Directors] of the corporation. Upon this information being relayed to the Speaker, he approved my recommendation that Mr. Chua will have to be the one to appear for the hearing,” Fariñas said.
Tan is reportedly the owner of the holding firm Alliance Global Inc., which entered in a joint venture for Resorts World Manila.
Also on Wednesday, Antipolo City Rep. Romeo Acop said he did not believe that security guards at the hotel had a shootout with Carlos because only three shots were fired, and only one was fired by hotel security.
The Resorts World Manila’s management had earlier said security team members engaged and wounded Carlos in the shootout.
During Acop’s questioning, Resorts World Manila’s chief legal officer Maria Regina Angeles said that CCTV footage would prove that there was an encounter between the security personnel and Carlos.
Sian also said during the hearing that another encounter transpired between the Lanting security team members and Carlos at the back of the hotel-casino.
After setting fire to the casino area, Carlos went up to the fifth floor of Maxims Hotel, set himself on fire then shot himself.