The Fire This Time

Fate could hardly be less kind to the 2 million Filipinos estimated to live in the slums of Manilalabyrinths of squatter huts without electricity or plumbing and filled to their corrugated roofs with pestilence and vermin. Every once in a while, life there gets even crueler. Two Sundays ago, an incident occurred at Block 4, Lot 41, of a Manila shantytown on the grounds of the Bataan Shipyard & Engineering Co., at the home of Zaldy and Racquel Eusebio. Neighbors say the couple was quarrelling and Racquel threw a candle at her husband. The Eusebios say a candle simply fell over....