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They happily attended a dinner party at a neighbor's house in sitio Banawa, barangay Guadalupe in Cebu City.
They went home to go to sleep. Then tragedy struck.
Fire believed to be caused by faulty electrical wiring razed the one-story home of lawyer Manuel Pastrana, 79, and his wife, Norma, 74, inside the Calderon Compound about 1 a.m. yesterday.
Killed in the fire were the couple and their housemaid, identified only as Joy, of Mabinay town in Negros Oriental.
Their charred remains were found inside the house, about two meters from each other. The body of Joy was found in what used to be the living room.
Weeks earlier, four family members were trapped and killed in their burning apartment on Don Pedro Rodriguez Street in barangay Capitol Site in Cebu City last Feb. 18.
In both cases, the buildings were several decades old and electrical wiring issues were raised as a hazard.
Yesterday fire was the fourth in March, which is celebrated as Fire Prevention Month.
It reinforced the need for households and building owners to inspect electrical connections as the Bureau of Fire and Protection identified faulty electrical wiring and electrical misue as the number one cause of fire.
The Banawa fire was believed to have started from the ceiling in a vacant room between the Pastrano couple's room and a guest room,said arson investigator Antonio Gonzales.
Justice Manuel Barrius of the Court Appeals was staying in the spare room but was able to escape.
Jenny Hemerga, live-in partner of the couple's driver Oliver Flores, said they were sleeping inside the servant's quarters when they became aware of the fire due to its heat. Their quarters is about eight meters from the victims? house.
She said she and Flores immediately went out and knocked several times on Joy's door but got no response.
Hemerga said Flores wanted to go to the room of his employers but decided not to go further because the fire became stronger.
?Nakabantay mi nga dako na ang kayo. Nigawas dayon mi kay luwason namo sila si sir (We noticed the fire was so big. We went out of the servant's quarter because we wanted to save sir),? she said.
?Nisuway unta siya og luwas unya naabtan sa kayo (We tried saving them but the fire had gotten so big),? said Hemerga.
Hemerga said Joy may have been trying to save her employers but got trapped. The maid just started working for the Pastranas last month.
At that time, a house guest, Justice Manuel Barrius was staying in teh spare room. When the fire broke out, Barrius even shouted at the couple to go outside and the couple reportedly responded, ?Mosunod lang mi (we will follow).?
Fire investigators suspect the elderly couple was suffocated by the thick smoke and lost consciousness before the fire reached them.
The couple's son, Peter John, whose house is next door, tried ripping out the the window jalousie blades in a bid to save them. But it was already too hot and the smoke had gotten too thick.
Then a backdraft occurred. The fire burst and engulfed the house.
Property damage was pegged at P900,000 by the fire department.
Lawyer Delano Tecson, 70, was shocked upon learning that his close friend was already gone.
He said he met with Manuel last Saturday at his house in barangay Mambaling in Cebu City to discuss cases that they jointly handled.
?I was shocked. We met days ago but he never showed signs that he was going to die. Di gyud mahibaw-an ang kinabuhi. (We can never tell when life would end),? Tecson said.
Pastrana, a native of Roxas City, passed the bar exams in 1957 after finishing law school in Manila.
His wife Norma was the sister of former congressman Emerito ?Tito? Calderon, a native of Samboan, southern thern Cebu.
The couple have three sons aged 43, 40, and 38.
The family was engaged in selling parcels of land in Ormoc and Cebu City.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City chapter yesterday extended their condolences to the Pastrana family and urged the BFP to come up with public warnings on how to prevent fire incidents.
Michael Yu, IBP Cebu president, noted the similar cause of fire in the Pastrana home and the old apartment building on P. Rodriguez Street that killed four persons.
?We will be coming out with a resolution requesting the Bureau of Fire Protection to investigate and give warnings to all the residents of Cebu, especially now that it?s summer,? he said.
Yu said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) must also strictly screen substandard electrical products sold in the market, which could cause fire.
