SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union – The provincial government of La Union headed by Governor Francisco Emmanuel ‘Pacoy’ Ortega III together with the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company and Smart Communications signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) recently officially launching the Provincial Incidence Response Management (PIRM) 911 emergency hotline.
“We will establish the 911 emergency hotline in La Union in partnership with DILG and PLDT. We will set up a command center at the capitol to receive calls and from there we will immediately send responders to emergencies,” Ortega said.
Ortega said that PLDT will conduct orientation to those who would be assigned as operators of the command center particularly those who will be answering calls.
The center will be under the supervision of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.
“Eventually, when we already have trained personnel (of command center and operators), we will cascade this down to the municipalities and the barangays. The public will be informed properly about the system,” Ortega said.
Ortega called on the public to patronize seriously the project and not to make prank calls which will disturb the operation of the center.
“All incoming calls will be verified because there is ‘caller identification’ in the system where we can trace the caller. I would like to appeal to the public that this matter is not a joke. This is very important because it’s about saving lives,” Ortega added.
PLDT and Smart will initially provide to the center their services and the technology.
By Dexter A. See