BFP: PH short of 19,000 firefighters

The country is short of at least 19,000 firefighters, the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) said Thursday.

BFP chief Director Louie Puracan made the disclosure after House Deputy Majority Leader Wilter Palma asked the agency about its unfilled positions during the deliberations on the Department of Interior and Local Government’s proposed P262 billion budget for 2024 before the House appropriations panel.

“Our unfilled positions as of June 2023 is 1,609, and we are asking for [funding the hiring] 2,000,” Puracan told lawmakers.

Asked why request 2,000 which is above 1,609, Puracan revealed that “As of now, we are still short of 19,160 firefighters all over the country. We can’t fill this up [yet],” he added.

Palma then asked the Philippine National Police (PNP) the same question, with Major General Robert Rodriguez of the PNP’s Human Resources saying that PNP’s number of unfilled positions has already reached 11,987.

The PNP, however, is only asking for the funding for 1,000 of those unfilled positions under the proposed 2024 budget.

Rodriguez explained that limiting the target to 1,000 is cost efficient, considering that only few of the PNP recruits end up being deemed qualified due to the stringent recruitment process.

“The 11,000 [unfilled position] is an accumulated figure over the years. When we recruit, we spend money for their processing. We were once given money to process 15,000 applicants and take 10,000 of them in, but only 7,000 to 8,000 passed the process,” he said.

“Since we already consumed our funds, we were never able to fill out the vacancies,” he added.

Rodriguez said that since 2021, the Department of Budget and Management and Congress have only approved funding for filling in 1,000 positions.

Just for 2023, Rodriguez said that only 102 of 1,000 applicants from the ranks of the former rebel groups Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) also passed the recruitment process.

“That is how high our attrition rate is because of our stringent recruitment process,” he said.

In response, Palma said such a high number of accumulated unfilled positions in the BFP and the PNP also shows poor leadership on the part of these agencies.

“This is a failure on the part of the management, if not lack of planning,” Palma said.—AOL, GMA Integrated News