DAVAO CITY—Compostela Valley is putting up the country’s “one stop” training center for disaster response and rescue, fire and medical emergencies, to save for the government the expensive and scattered renting facilities for specific training needs of rescue personnel.
Randolf Arbutante, provincial director of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), said the province has already allotted 9 hectares inside the government center in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley, for the center, which would have simulated buildings and facilities for different emergency natural and man-made disaster situations.
The training center would have a rappelling tower, burn building, a center for disease-control building, mountain search and rescue station, vehicle-extrication station, emergency medical-services station, landslide-simulation area, confined space-rescue station, hazmat and other protective clothing and gadgets building, trench-rescue station, collapse-structure station, water search and rescue and arson-scenario station.
“Many of these facilities are simulation of actual situations. There is one facility where we can simulate an actual car crash,” he said.
The water search and rescue training would be done at a pool with a spot that is 15 meters deep,” Arbutante added.
The facilities would be spread across the 9 hectares, making it a center with all the simulations of disaster and emergency situations installed, he said.
“This is the only one integrated training facility in the country and, by 2019, all the training requirement of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, the police and disaster-rescue personnel would be conducted here,” he said. “Even in the US, there is not one center like this one.”
The facility would cut down on government-expenses renting on facilities.
“For the BFP, for example, we have to rent a building to simulate a burning multilevel building, and it is expensive,” he said.
In all cases, trainings for specific situations or conditions would be done elsewhere, he added.
It was the national BFP that authorized Arbutante to propose the integrated facility to the provincial government, “which immediately received the proposal.” The two Congress representatives from Compostela Valley, Reps. Maricar S. Zamora of the First District Compostela Valley and Ruwel Peter S. Gonzaga of the Second District of Compostela Valley, have pledged financial support from their allocations.
Two other congressmen, Rep. Karlo Alexei B. Nograles of of the First District of Davao City, chief of the appropriations committee; and Party-list Rep. Jericho Jonas B. Nograles of PBA, also committed financial assistance to the facility, he said.
All the mayors of the 11 municipalities have also promised to allocate no less than P2 million each.
The construction of the training facilities would cost P160 million, which has been committed already. The facility would be ready by 2019, he said.
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Sir/Maam good day, ask ko lng po kung lahat ba nang gustong maging bombero coming from region XI can avail this center? It means hindi na kami pupunta sa Laguna para mag training? Thank you and God Bless!