By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan
MANILA – Close to a thousand active and retired Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) employees, including its chief, will face criminal charges over alleged anomalies inside the agency, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said Thursday.
“I will be filing charges against the chief of the BFP, Jesus Fernandez, also to his deputies, also the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC),” Remulla said at a press briefing.
“Director Fernandez, before becoming chief of the BFP, was head of the procuring entity. He was the head of BAC.”
Remulla said he would ask President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to replace Fernandez.
The BFP is under the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Remulla said they aim to file the cases next week.
“Our case build-up is complete, we should be ready to file cases against the Bids and Awards Committee from 2014 to 2025 for bid rigging. We are ready. What we have, our proof, is solid,” he said.
Remulla said the respondents will come from BFP units across the country, but most are in Metro Manila.
“Maybe it will be almost a thousand (BFP personnel), that’s the whole Philippines. We saw it. In the backtracking of our DILG regional offices, we saw their modus operandi,” the DILG chief said.
Remulla said the DILG is preparing administrative charges against the entire BFP unit in Silang, Cavite over an alleged money-making racket that has victimized small businessmen including, he added, one of his nephews.
“The entire organization has been affected. So, it will take time bago maayos natin ito (before we can fix this). But, slowly, we’re getting there,” he said. (PNA)
