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 the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Fire Protection, and the other public safety services under the Department of Interior and Local Government.
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.
Fire trucks
The first two batches of these fire trucks were 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 Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), with a total of 469 units. Of these units, 244 have a 1000-gallon capacity while 225 have a 500-gallons capacity. This amounted to P2.5 billion.
[Read the President’s speech at the turnover.]
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 hit this target. At present there are 2,215 fire trucks (under the BFP) all over the Philippines, catering to almost 100 million people.
As the fire prevention month culminates today, the BFP recorded at least 1,909 fire incidents nationwide, with 169.3 million worth of damages for the month of March 2016.
These figures are a significant drop compared to last year’s 2,869 fire incidents (a total of 419.2 million worth of damages).
Patrol jeeps
The 144 new patrol jeeps on the other hand is part of the 186 units of 4×2 Mahindra Enforcer patrol jeeps 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.
—From the Department of Interior and Local Government