'Heads will roll over Valenzuela factory fire'

MANILA - Malacañang assured that "heads will roll" once the investigation into the massive fire that killed 72 factory workers is completed.

"Yung 'heads must roll,' I think that's already a given, but after due investigation and upon the findings based on evidence of course," deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview Saturday.

Valte reiterated the statement of Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz that Kentex Manufacturing Corp., which owns the fire-gutted two-storey building in Valenzuela City, did not only break employment laws.

"[The number of violations that are there are not just violations anymore, but Secretary Linda Baldoz called it 'immoral' already -- yung non-compliance with regular wages, et cetera, working conditions -- and certainly we don't want it replicated," she said.

That is why, she said, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is intensifying its inspections of industrial work places.

She said Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas is also making sure that the Fire Code, through the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), is properly implemented.

Permits should also only be issued based on compliance with the Fire and Building Code, she added.

Meanwhile, Valte said proposals of imposing stiffer penalties on building owners who fail to comply with fire safety laws are in the hands of the legislative branch.