2 OFWs killed in Macau fire brought home to Pangasinan

VILLASIS, Pangasinan, Philippines – Twenty-two year-old overseas Filipino worker Paul Angelo Lita wanted to be home on Dec. 18 to attend the 4th birthday celebration of his son, and spend Christmas with him at Barangay (village) Zone IV here.

He had been away for months, working as a waiter in Macau since Feb. 12. But Lita will not be able to hug his son on his birthday.

At 12:15 a.m. on Thursday, Lita arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 via Cebu Pacific flight from Macau in a sealed coffin. On Nov. 12, exactly on his ninth month in Macau, he and three others died in an early morning fire that razed the apartment building where he and his partner, Angeline Tomas, stayed.

Lita’s remains arrived here at about 9 a.m. at his grandmother’s house here. The remains of Marites Natino, 46, another Pangasinan migrant worker killed in the fire, arrived on Wednesday and had been taken to her house in Barangay Cabalitian in Umingan town, according to Jonjon Soliven, political officer of Board Member Ranjit Shahani, who helped the families in the repatriation of the victims’ bodies.

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