DILG orders BFP to assist in Oplan Kalinga implementation

The Department of the Interior and Local Government has tasked the Bureau of Fire Protection in assisting local health authorities in implementing the government's Oplan Kalinga program.

“The BFP is part of the Municipal/City COVID-19 Task Forces and in this capacity they have been assisting the [city, or municipal health offices] transport patients since the start of the pandemic. In fact, they have so far transported 1,674 [coronavirus] patients nationwide,” DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said in a press statement on Friday.

According to Año, the BFP’s Emergency Medical Service and Special Rescue Units have the necessary health personnel and equipment in transporting COVID-19 patients.

Under the Oplan Kalinga, local health officials, assisted by police officers, will go house-to-house to search for mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases so that they can be transferred to isolation facilities.

Earlier, the government said a COVID-19 patient is allowed to do home quarantine if he or she has a separate room; if the patient has his or her own comfort room; and if he or she is not living with people who are vulnerable to the disease.

Año noted that since the start of the health crisis, the BFP has mobilized 73.80% of its total personnel, or 20,947 officers out of the 29,383 total manpower, for different tasks as part of DILG’s efforts to defeat COVID-19.

“We have deployed 98 BFP EMS ambulances, 35 Rescue/HazMat vehicles, 970 firetrucks and 114 BFP service vehicles for the DILG’s overall COVID 19 response,” he said.

It also intensified its contact tracing efforts as part of the local contact tracing teams, he added. —LBG, GMA News