CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY –— The Philippine Army of planning to move out its ammunition complex away from Camp Edliberto Evangelista, the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division.
Following the fire and explosion early dawn Tuesday, Commanding General of the Philippine Army Lt. General Romeo Brawner, Jr on Tuesday said that area around Camp Evangelista’s 10th Forward Service Support Unit of the Army Support Command is now too populated.
“We are looking at the possibility of transferring our ammunition storage facility to a safer place,” Brawner said.
Brawner added that military camps were established decades ago, and Camp Evangelista was established in 1946 and there were no nearby communities yet when it was established.
“The current location of the ammunition dump is actually very safe at that time (it was established) because it is very far from the population. But as time went by, communities started to build around Camp Evamgelista, and that is why we saw it ourselves that it is quite dangerous already,” Brawner said.
brawner added that even though the ammuniton complex is very safe and up to the global military standards in handling and storage of ammunitions, it is now quite dangerous to have it in the middle of the city.
10th FSSU commading officer Lt. Col Vladimir Santa Maria said that all safety precautions required for the handling and storage of munitions were observed. Lt.Gen Brawner also agreed that the manual for storage and handling of munitions were followed. The FSSU handles munitions supplies ans logistics support for the 4th ID.
Brawner said that they now have plans of relocating the munition complex to a safer site but also pointed that there are so many considerations that needs to address, foremost of it is the security of the ammunition complex.
“It needs to be within an army camp where there are large presence of military because we don’t want the ammo complex vulnerable to attacks. It needs to be situated within a camp with large presence of military,” Brawner added.
Though Brawner did not mention any specific place, the 4th ID has three infantry brigade camps in Surigao del Sur, Butuan City and Malaybalay City.
