The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said the 911 emergency hotline is now faster and more effective in responding to calls with the use of advanced technology.
“Dati, mano-mano tayo. Ngayon because of teknolohiya, ang bilis ng galaw,” DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos told reporters after the simulation at Camp Crame’s command center.
(Before, we did it manually. Now, because of technology, the actions become faster.)
“Importante mabilis ‘yung tawag mo, mabilis ‘yung bato mo. So binabato kaagad nila ‘yan, from tawag, punta rito, tapos binabato kung saan ang location ng Pilipinas po ‘yan. Mabilis po dapat ‘yan,” he added.
(It’s important that the call is being forwarded swiftly and then the location of the caller anywhere in the Philippines is being forwarded swiftly as well.)
During the simulation, the duration of the 911 call to police response took about 56 seconds.
Bernard delos Santos of E911 National Call Center said that with the new technology, the hotline team is able to filter prank and spam calls.
Previously, only 500 of the 50,000 calls were legitimate. Now, he said the number of emergency calls received by the system was cut to around half.
“With the new system, all those spams or prank callers, first and foremost, they can identify and locate because of the capabilities of the new system (with) GPS,” Delos Santos said.
“‘Yung consistent prank callers, pwede na po natin siyang mai-tag (Consistent prank callers can now be tagged),” he added.
Through a memorandum of understanding, the DILG said the Next Generation Advanced 911 (NGA 911), an emergency calling technology company, and telecommunications firm PLDT Inc. donated advanced technology features for the country’s emergency hotline.
These include precise caller location services, advanced mapping and incident management systems, data analytics, video streaming, omni-channel messaging, and integration of body, and vehicle cameras in responding to emergencies.
NGA 911’s Ishka Villacisneros said that they are aiming to reach the standards in the United States when it comes to emergency hotline response.
“Tayo po ang first Next Gen 911 country sa Southeast Asia dahil po ang Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, sila po lahat nagbe-benchmark po ngayon sa Pilipinas,” she added.
(We are the first Next Gen 911 country in Southeast Asia because Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, they are all benchmarking now against the Philippines.)
Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Rommel Marbil said the government is aiming to interconnect local government units and more state agencies with the 911 emergency hotline system.
“We try to interconnect with the different local government units,” Marbil said.
“Ikokonek-ikokonek natin ‘yan para ‘yung serbisyo natin mabilis (We will be connected so our service will be faster). We start with the PNP, Bureau of Fire Protection, then we try to connect with different agencies,” he added.
The 911 emergency hotline has been operational since 2020. — VDV, GMA Integrated News
Be the first to comment