A total of 25 senior officers of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) were promoted to become one-star general, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Monday, March 28.
“Congratulations to the newly-promoted Chief Superintendents (full-pledge generals) of the BFP and BJMP. This victory in your career is yet another testimony of your perseverance. Continue raising the bar of excellence in the delivery of public service as you fulfill your mandates as fire and jail officers,” DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said.
Chief Superintendent is equivalent to Brigadier General or one star rank in the police and the military.
The newly promoted senior officers took their oath before Año and were witnessed by DILG Undersecretary for Public Safety Nestor F. Quinsay, Jr., BJMP Director Allan Iral and BFP Director Louie S. Puracan at the DILG Headquarters.
Ano said that of the 25 promoted officials, 18 fire officers who are mostly regional directors and chiefs of offices who rose from the ranks at the National Headquarters while seven are senior officers of the Jail Bureau.
Of those promoted, one is a female jail personnel and two are female fire officers.
“We are glad that we have female fire and jail officers joining our list of new promotions in time for the celebration of the National Women’s Month signifying our confidence in the capabilities of our female employees to become assets in government service,” Ano said.
Ano maintained that the promotions are not only made for a better organizational structure within the bureaucracy but most importantly, “they are testament to the hard work of our personnel and the fruition of years of committed service they dedicated in the name of their sworn duty to the people.”
Meanwhile, Puracan emphasized taking advantage of the promotion as an opportunity to further improve the delivery of service to the people while underscoring that the newly-promoted fire officers must strive for a corruption-free tenure.
“Let's not waste this chance or opportunity given to the Bureau and return it by better serving the people. We should return this gesture and promotion by serving an honest to goodness work for the government and the people,” Puracan said.
Puracan said those promoted to generals are fortunate that they achieved star rank early on in their career considering most of them are only between 46 to 50 years old.
A total of 65 BFP officials were promoted to the rank of Fire/Senior Superintendent (Colonel) last month.
The BFP has a total manpower of 33,872 firefighters nationwide while the BJMP has 18,600 jail personnel. (Chito A. Chavez)