Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr., on Tuesday, promised that he will work out in a year's time, the placement of fire stations and fire trucks to 123 local goverment units in the country.
In a press briefing with Bureau of Fire Protection Director Louie Puracan and other BFP officials, Abalos said since he assumed office, the lack of fire trucks stands at 240 fire trucks. However, they were already able to trimmed it down to a hundred.
But there are also 123 more far flung localities that still do not have even a fire stations.
"That's why we are talking to local executives in this area to donate or even lend us a land for us to build or give them a fire station. Some of them have already been provided with fire truck that they park anywhere," Abalos said.
For funding, Abalos said the yearly P1B allocated for BFP modernization is not enough to reach the gap and he was able to convince Department of Budget Management Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romuladez to add more funds for them to acquire the necessary equipment and property.
Puracan, on the other hand, said they have been remitting an average of P3.5B a year to the national coffers from fees and permits they have issued. This he said, might help defray the amount they needed to meet the gap mentioned by the Secretary.
Puracan said a fire station would need at least 400 square meters and could cost P10 million to construct.
The fire trucks meanwhile only has 25,000 gallons on their procurement program. But in municipalities, fire truck with 500-1,000 gallons capacity is enough to response to any fire incident.
What they need at the moment is a helicopter that can pour suppressant to wild fires engulfing the countries forested areas.
Abalos said it has already been discussed too with Pangandaman and Romualdez and might be included in the pipeline to the time period of one year he promised.