Fire that hit North Cotabato state college could intentional, says fire official

KIDAPAWAN CITY – The fire that gutted on Monday the rest house and stock room of a state-run college in a town in North Cotabato could be ‘intentional,’ a fire official today said.Fire Chief Inspector Ibrahim Guiamalon, Cotabato provincial fire marshal, said they are baffled as to what caused the fire at a building inside the Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology (CFCST).The fire started around 745 p.m., Monday, and engulfed the whole place for about 15 minutes, Guiamalon said.The room, according to Guiamalon, has been used as rest house of a certain Ruben Mamburao, CFCST’s chief cashier. Mamburao resides in Poblacion, this city, which is about an hour travel north-east from his house.During the investigation, Guiamalon said they found out that inside Mamburao’s place were important documents, materials, and school supplies. Nothing inside the room has been saved as it was really razed to the ground aside from the fact that it was made from light materials, he explained.The fire bureau has yet to get statements from Mamburao and the school management.Reports said the school allowed Mamburao to use the stock room for free as his temporary place.Guiamalon said the documents and other materials that were burned during the fire could be important to the ongoing investigation of the graft issues faced by the school.CFCST president Dr. Sam Molao has been accused of graft and corruption by a group of teachers and employees of the school led by Dr. Harris Sinolinding, brother of the regional health secretary of the Department of Health in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DOH-ARMM).In December last year, Sinolinding and other members of the faculty joined a group of students who staged a picket in the campus to force Molao to step down.The protesters also called on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to act on their concerns.But Molao during that time said he won’t step down from power as there is no criminal or any graft case filed against him.He also said only the CHED can take him out and install a school caretaker to replace him.