Over 200 officials of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), including all regional directors, are under investigation over the “Slot-for-Sale Recruitment Scam,” Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla disclosed on Friday.

Remulla, during a press briefing at Camp Crame, warned BFP personnel not to be involved further on criminal acts such as recruitment and promotion schemes inside the organization as they will face the full extent of the law.

“I am warning all BFP officials: Come forward now and admit your wrongdoing, or we will pursue you until the end of your careers,’’ Remulla warned.

“Again, I am warning you: I am serious, and I will go after all of you. We will clean up this organization. You can see that the entire DILG family is united in this effort,’’ he added.

Remulla explained that although the BFP personnel were under investigation, only those who will be proven to have links to the scheme will be relieved from their posts.

Clean up act

“if you are born into an institution steeped in corruption, you will be corrupt for life. So, we’ll clean it up. This will be a massive purge,” Remulla told reporters.

He added that the BFP and the Philippine National Police have yet to finalize how many “slot-selling” cases were being investigated.

The probe stemmed from the recent operation by Criminal Investigation and Detection Group on 24 August, in Pampanga arresting a Senior Fire Officer 1 assigned to the BFP National Capital Region, who allegedly contacted an applicant for a position in the bureau’s Central Luzon for P500,000.

The CIDG also said the arrested SFO1 named a “senior fire commissioned officer” as a cohort in the purported scheme.

Remulla identified the alleged cohort as a deputy director for administration in BFP Calabarzon.

In the same press briefing, BFP officer in charge Fire Chief Superintendent Wilberto Rico Neil Kwan Tiu said the implicated personnel had been relieved from their post and are now facing dismissal proceedings.

Kwan Tiu said that the bureau and the police arrested another SFO1 in the Ilocos Region, who had recently been dismissed by the agency, but he did not provide further details.

Remulla also said that the racketeering scheme starts in the selection process of applicants for the BFP recruitment, wherein an applicant who was qualified after the physical examination and reached the final selection needs to have a minimum of P100,000 to P800,000 to be selected and backed by certain individuals from the organization.

“Actually, what happened now is that as long as people are involved in the selection, corruption happens but now systems are generated who are qualified after the physicals, after their credentials, after all their tests, they will generate names and those names are open and you are qualified for final selection,” Remulla said.