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.