This is the most Filipino thing we’ve seen all day.
We do a lot of things with our slippers — walk in them and even kill cockroaches with them. What you don’t see every day is someone putting out a fire using them, like what this guy did inside a mall in Davao City.
Facebook user Ron Bongcayao Moncada shared a now-viral post on Saturday of a man putting out a fire caused by an electrical outlet in the SM Ecoland Annex mall with his — you guessed it — flip-flops.
The incident happened on Saturday at 3:55pm. Moncada identified the man as Juvanie Ladano Castañares, who can be seen in the video throwing both of his flip-flops at the fire to put it out — and miraculously, it worked.
Moncada told Coconuts Manila that he was buying waffles from a nearby store when he suddenly heard “a loud spark.”
“Some people were running away, [but] Sir Juvanie just went near the small fire and tried to extinguish the fire using his flip-flops,” he said.
He added that he froze on the spot when the fire started, but he was amazed by how Castañares quickly thought of a way to extinguish it.
Moncada said that the outlet became overloaded with all the Christmas lights that were plugged in. “The big Christmas tree [lights were] plugged [in] there,” he told Coconuts.
Moncada joking suggested that Castañares was likely a past champion of the Filipino children’s game known as tumbang lata (“knock down the can”), where the objective of the game is to make the can fall to its side by throwing a slipper at it.
“I don’t personally know him [Castañares], but he messaged me [on] FB and [thanked] me for capturing the video,” he added.
The video had more than 2.5million views, 13,000 likes, and 29,000 shares as of this article’s posting. Like Moncada, netizens were amazed by Castañares’ heroics.
Leslie Birondo tagged a friend and said: [Not] all heroes wear capes. Some of them just wear…[Superman] shirts.”
Jimjim Garcia had his own take on the saying: “[Not] all heroes wear capes, other heroes wear slippers.”
“He’s just calm, that’s awesome!” said Joselito Rapisora.
“Thanks so much ‘slipper man’ for saving the day. Your quick actions may have averted [the] disaster. Thank you very much, kind sir,” wrote Malcolm Conlan.
Rodjie Ulanday joked: “Hahaha the guy’s a varsity [player] at tumbang lata (“knock down the can”).”
Angelica R. de Leon said that he should be hired as a safety officer at the mall.
Have you ever seen anything like this happen at a mall or at any other place? Leave a comment below or tweet us @CoconutsManila.
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