RP maid given hero's welcome

RP maid given hero's welcome

MANILA (AFP): A Filipina maid who saved her three Singaporean
wards, including an infant, from a Christmas day fire in the
island-state arrived to a hero's welcome in the Philippines
yesterday.

Zenaida Ricarte, 20, was greeted at the airport by a
Philippine Air Force band and top officials of the Labor
Department and Philippine National Bank (PNB), which sponsored
newspaper advertisements extolling her "heroism."

Ricarte rushed into a burning building last Christmas day to
save her three wards trapped on the 16th floor. News reports here
said she had just arrived from a dinner with friends when she saw
the 25-story building ablaze. She said her employers had told her
not to go into the building.

"But she did not mind her own safety and risked her life to
save her three wards from instant death," the advertisements
said.