President Aquino led today's distribution of 135 newly procured fire trucks and 144 new police patrol jeeps as part of the administration's continuing commitment to modernize and enhance the capability of the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Fire Protection and the other public safety services under the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Aquino was accompanied by Interior and Local Government Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento in a simple turn over ceremony at the Quezon City Circle in Quezon City.
The first as well as the second batch of these fire trucks were already distributed last year, while the third batch with a total of 155 units fire engines were turned over to its recipients last February 19 of this year.
This is the first and the biggest fire truck procurement in the history of the BFP with a total of 469 units, 244 of which are1000 gallons capacity while 225 are 500 gallons capacity that amounted to 2.5 Billions of pesos.
“These new additional fire trucks will aid in the filling up of shortages on its assets and will intensify fire suppression capability of the BFP. It will not only boost the capability of our fire fighters, it will also help them to be more effective and efficient in performing their mandated task, similarly these new equipment will also lift the morale of our fire-fighters because the dilapidated fire trucks will be replaced by the new ones,” President Aquino said as he emphasized the importance of the acquisition of these additional fire engines.
With the standard ratio of 1:28,000 or one fire truck for every twenty eight thousand population, the BFP still needs at least one thousand fire trucks to achieve the lacking requirement considering that at present there are 2,215 fire trucks being utilized by the BFP all over the Philippines catering almost 100 million population.
As the Fire Prevention month culminates today, the BFP have recorded at least 1,909 fire incidents nationwide with 169.3 million worth of damages for the month of March 2016.
It has a significant drop compared to last year’s 2,869 fire incidents with a total of 419.2 million worth of damages.
The 144 new patrol jeeps on the other hand is part of the 186 units of 4x2 Mahindra Enforcer patrol jeeps which was recently procured as repeat order from the savings generated from the procurement 1,470 patrol jeeps sourced out from the Capability Enhancement Program (CEP) fund CYs 2011-2013.
On top of the 144 units that were distributed by President Aquino, 27 units were already turned over to the municipal, city and regional PNP units which were not covered in the initial procurement of 1,470 units Patrol Jeeps.
The remaining patrol jeeps were initially assigned to the PNP logistics support service.
The procurement of additional mobility assets for police stations and different PNP units will improve police visibility and respond to any eventuality especially in crime prone areas. The patrol jeeps can also be used during relief and rescue operations, Internal Security Operation (ISO) and other related activities.
Likewise, it is envisioned that all municipal and city police stations/offices in the PNP shall have at least one (1) vehicle for their police operations. This is now realized with the procurement of 1,470 units and the herein 144 additional units of patrol jeeps. # Source - www.dilg.gov.ph
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