Chinese Volunteer Firefighters

October 22, 2009 · Filed Under opinion · Comment

Let’s play with fire!!! Okay, I’m just kidding.

I was researching tidbits on firefighters — with our house just a few steps away from such a station, when I came across an article by hard-hitting journalist Mon Tulfo, about government firefighters being compared to Chinese volunteers.

Let me quote from the article — “The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) might as well be abolished in Metro Manila and the task of putting out fires assigned to civilian fire volunteers.” The piece says that Chinese volunteer gets to the fire scene faster than their government counterpart, and that they “dont go around asking for money from owners of houses or establishments on fire”.

Makes me wonder what makes all the difference — of course, that’s if the “accusations” are true. Could it be the training? Or maybe the values?

Will things change if there’s a specialized course on fire fighting here in the Philippines — say a Bachelor of arts in fire service administration? I saw one online, Lewis University (it says it’s a Lasallian University, so maybe our local De La Salle can carry something like it, noh?), and the course includes lessons on fire service administration, risk management, legal aspects, criminalistics, and even administration of emergency medical service (very very important!). They also have the very necessary “ethics in fire service” — so firefighters would not even think of “stealing” from the fire victims. tsk. They also have Planning for Community Fire Protection.

Maybe this is the solution, the thing that we need. Firefighting isn’t just a job, it’s something that saves lives, and so more knowledge and more heart should be put into it. Maybe sometime in the near future, we can have something like this.

As for now, thank you to our firefighters, and our volunteers.