BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Benjamin Magalong led other officials in the formal inauguration of the Summer Capital’s P200 million Smart City Command Center, September 10, at the Baguio Convention Center.
A keynote message from Pres. Rodrigo Duterte read in person by Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Marlo Iringan commending and supporting the project highlighted the event.
The President congratulated the city for completing the high-tech project despite the ongoing coronavirus 2019 pandemic.
“Transforming the city into data-driven and technologically –able in times of emergency is worthy of recognition. Considering the many challenges that all local government units locally and globally are facing,” Duterte said.
The project is “a critical step towards pushing and institutionalizing the innovation in the way we define good governance. The future has arrived today,” the President said.
For his part, Mayor Magalong said the facility, entirely funded by the Office of the President, will allow the city to respond to emergencies and improve the social and health system.
He said the command center uses state-of-the-art Cisco technology that will revolutionize how the city manages its critical assets, increase capacity to prevent and respond to emergencies and disasters, preserve the environment, speed up government services, improve social and health systems and protect lives and properties.
“With the command center, the city government will be able to govern efficiently by gathering data to be able to identify problems, analyze and solve problems,” the Mayor said.
Its key components include an integrated command center, communication platform, a video management system with video, computer-aided dispatch, geographical information system, big data analytics, smart mobility, smart environment, smart governance, smart health system, smart traffic signalization, and smart Baguio people.
“Let me thank our President for providing us the funds to put up this Smart City system. It allows us to gather and dig data to be able to identify, analyze and solve problems, ” Magalong said.-Gaby B. Keith