Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to play with fire (and fire alarms)?
Some students from Palawan State University (PSU) in Puerto Princesa City will face punishments for playing with a fire alarm and intentionally setting it off.
“The Palawan State University does not condone the utter misbehaviour of some students committed by intentionally setting off the fire alarm system for mere entertainment as shown in a video that has recently gone viral on Facebook,” the PSU University Student Government said in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement went on to say that the act was ill-thought-out and violated the provisions of Republic Act No. 9514 known as the Fire Code of the Philippines of 2008. Under Section 8, setting off false or malicious fire alarms is prohibited. Anyone who violates the provision can be fined PHP4,000 (US$76.05) for the first offense and PHP12,000 (US$228.15) for succeeding offenses.
However, the school did not disclose what punishment the students will face. It said: “The university is by no means tolerating or taking the incident lightly. Rest assured that the University will deal with the matter and the persons involved accordingly.”
The now-deleted video was posted on Facebook on Jan. 2 (Wednesday) by one of the students involved in the incident, ABS-CBN News reported. It has since been reposted by another Facebook page where it went viral and got over 2 million views and 64,000 shares.
The video shows four students taking turns at trying to set off the school’s fire alarm. It then escalates when one finally succeeds and it rings throughout the school.
The unidentified students will be punished according to the students’ handbook, but the school will first meet with the students’ parents before they enforce sanctions.
“We discussed this with the students. The committee decided then that before we enforce any sanction, I am calling up the parents to a meeting. We should have a meeting because to be fair for them to impose any disciplinary action without the knowledge,” Dr. Grace Abrina, the director of the University’s Office of the Students Affairs, told ABS-CBN News.
The video was taken on a Saturday, which means only a few students were disturbed by the alarm, the ABS-CBN News report added.
Although the students have already apologized, the school is keen on putting its foot down as administrators believe the act should not be tolerated, the report states.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Fire Protection also paid the school a visit to probe the incident and to talk to the students involved in the video.
Coconuts Manila has reached out to one of the students involved but he has yet to respond.
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