Phil. Daily Inquirer, December 21, 2006
ACTRESS and environment advocate Chin-Chin Gutierrez suffered second degree burns and cuts after a two-hour fire razed her house on Gonzalez Street, Barangay Loyola Heights in Quezon City at 3:28 a.m. yesterday.
Fire officials said the 32-year-old actress jumped from the top floor of her two-story house to get to her bedridden mother, Cecille Arnaldo, who was on the ground floor.
This was confirmed by Anjie Ureta, Gutierrez’s manager. “She jumped from the second floor, where her bedroom was, so she could get to her mom’s room quickly. She was worried the oxygen tank in her mom’s room might explode.”
Gutierrez was able to save her mother, a diabetic who has been bedridden for the past two months, with the help of her two house helpers.
The actress, however, suffered burns in her hands and feet as well as several cuts as she scrambled out of the house, arson investigators said.
Ureta said Gutierrez is now being treated in a hospital for her injuries.
“She’s now a little better. But when she was brought to the hospital, she was weak and in extreme pain. The doctors also checked her lungs because they were worried about smoke inhalation,” she told the Inquirer.
Her mother, meanwhile, was confined in the intensive care unit as a precautionary measure. Arnaldo had just gotten out of the hospital a month ago.
According to arson investigators, Gutierrez, her mother and their two house helpers were awakened by smoke coming from one of the bedrooms on the second floor. The blaze quickly spread and damaged Gutierrez’s two cars parked on the driveway, said SFO4 Jose Nagpacan of the Quezon City fire department.
“The house was razed to the ground. Even though the walls were made of cement, the flooring of the second story was made of wood so the flames spread fast,” he told the Inquirer.
Nagpacan said investigators had not yet arrived at an estimate of the property damage, but he added that it could run into millions of pesos because of valuables and cars lost in the blaze.
Filmmaker Rory B. Quintos, who had directed Gutierrez in the ABS-CBN series, “Krystala,” last year, appealed for help for the actress and her mother.
“They are in dire need of financial help. The entire house was burned to the ground. They weren’t able to save anything—not even their pet dogs,” said Quintos.
“The first thing she asked at the hospital was if the neighbors and her five dogs were spared from the fire,” Ureta said.
She added that investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire. “They suspect it’s faulty wiring because it’s an old house she inherited from her grandmother.”
PO3 Willie Ables of the Anonas Police Station, which conducted a parallel investigation, said the fire reached the third alarm and was put out at 5:18 a.m.
Gutierrez, a mainstay in the ABS-CBN soap opera “Maging Sino Ka Man,” is a staunch environmentalist. She received the TOWNS (The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service) award in 2004 and was honored by Time magazine as a modern-day Asian hero in 2003.
Gutierrez made her acting debut as Maria Clara in National Artist Eddie Romero’s TV mini-series “Noli me Tangere” in 1992.
She is a supporter of the animal rights’ organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as well as the environmental group Greenpeace.
