Philippines fire kills 15, many nursing students

[Krikit 1,163]

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And another post removed.

[A and T 82]

Its very sad that 15 people died in a horrific fire, and its extremely sad that some people find this funny. You might not find it funny if it were your wife, or family that died in that same fire.

[Ban Hammer 12,835]

for a tragedy like this, we don't need the horrific pictures to illustrate one's point. please have some empathy for other posters.

[Kevin- 13]

This is horrible, it nearly brings tears to my eyes. I agree with the comment about corruption, I was going to mention it myself. I am a political conservative, but things like this are areas where I agree governments need to be "big enough". On one hand, in some parts of the US the building codes are ridiculous, influenced by corporations who want to make it impossible for small businesses to compete with them and enforced by egomaniacal zealots who seem to love making life difficult for others. But on the other hand, not having or properly enforcing proper building codes results in tragedies like this.

Whenever I look at planning a trip over there, I think of the myriad examples of how corruption is holding that country down like a 300 lb wrestler sitting on a poodle. Public safety for example. In provinces, the fire departments might sometimes show up to locations that were at some point on fire. If the fire has not gone out by running out of things to burn, they'll head down to the river to get some water, and come back to prevent it from burning down more buildings. Then, if a large building was destroyed, it's burnt wreckage will just stay where it was for years and years, eventually surrounded by small street vendors building little lean-to shops from bamboo. Traffic is a big one as well. From Manila to Davao, and especially all places in between. (I haven't been to Davao yet, just picked the big southern city) Each agency the money passes through on it's way to build a new highway or fix an old one will extract a portion of the funds for itself. By the time the money meets the road, there's barely enough left to hire a handful of workers to build the road almost entirely by hand. A project that would take a week or two to complete in the US will take a year or more in those circumstances. Pollution is another major issue. Air pollution, water pollution, and even noise pollution. Manila Bay is disgusting, for example - don't they ban fishing of any kind in there? I couldn't get over how even out in the province, and a few miles out of the nearby city, it's just noisy all the time.

The Philippines could easily have become like Japan (in terms of economy and modernization, etc) in the same time period that Japan has become what it is, if the government were not so corrupt.

Okay okay okay, I need to get back to work now.

[Pinay Wife 47]

So tragic and so sad.