A boarder who was behind on his rent reportedly started a fire that razed a two-story residential and commercial building in Mandaluyong City yesterday.
Arson investigators are hunting down a boarder identified as Mei Gatdula, who was seen by his fellow boarders spraying their room with gasoline shortly before the fire broke out shortly before 5am.
Nobody was injured in the fire, which destroyed 500,000 pesos-worth of property and left 80 families homeless. It was put out just after 6am.
The building, which is on Esteban street in Barangay Highway Hills, is owned by Celia Atienza.
Meanwhile, a fire reportedly caused by a defective appliance spread through a residential compound in Pasig City at past midnight yesterday.
The blaze, which started at the house of Erlinda Legaspi in Barangay Maybunga at 1am, destroyed 10 houses and property estimated at a million pesos before it was put out an hour later.