Fire hit's Corella market; blaze comes at a time when town applies for loan

ANO tongues have started wagging, just as yet, alluding wrongdoing in the fire that hit the old and dilapidated Corella Public Market, but there were insinuations the it has something to do with the current political bickering in the town's officialdom. For months now, the tiny town of Corella has been rocked by the internal squabbling of the endless animosity of at least two factions rending apart the entire leadership of the Sangguniang Bayan. Practically all by his lonesome, Mayor Vito Rapal is ranged against the forces of V-Mayor Isabelo Daquipil in the SB.

The sharp political divide between the two groups hampered the delivery of basic services dragging even the approval of the municipal budget. The political enmity between the two groups took a new twist when the Rapal administration tried to cajole the SP leadership into endorsing a loan application for the local public market. Already nursing from another bruising skirmish in the municipal budget deliberations, the public market loan application became another fodder of the two factions' long running feud. The fire that hit the Corella market Friday dawn would surely ignite another fireworks courtesy of the two warring factions.

Whether it will hasten approval of the loan courtesy of the SP or the law making body will find all the reasons to block its approval will remain in the realm of speculation. On the part of Mayor Rapal, the more reason he will lobby for the approval of the loan because as far as the town is concerned, with the public market going up in smoke, one revenue getting entity has lost its power of taxation, one of the traditional sources of the town's income.

Another thing that will surely raise eyebrows as a result of the fire was the allegation that the blaze started at a block tienda where there was no electrical connection. Some people in Corella are waiting for that fire report issued that fire was due to faulty electrical wiring. The fire razed to the ground a total of 12 block tiendas leaving nothing in its raging path as the blaze roared through the old public market site in barangay Poblacion. Firetrucks from Balilihan and Tagbilaran took turns in combating the fire but to no avail.

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