The much-awaited 911 emergency hotline number made its debut on Mon, Aug 1.
On that same morning, the hotline received 2,745 calls. However, out of all those, only 75 were legitimate concerns.
There were 1,119 dropped calls. Last but not least, there were 304 were prank calls.
The stats may indicate that there seems to be a lot of people with too much time on their hands. (But that’s another story.)
We could say that the 911 national hotline is still on its “soft opening” stage.
In a report on Philstar.com, Telecommunications Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba disclosed that “all calls to 911 will be rerouted to the existing Patrol 117 hotline while the 911 command center is not yet established.”
It may be recalled that the 911 hotline concept is the brainchild of President Rodrigo Duterte, as he implemented the same setup when he was mayor of Davao City.
But there is a difference — at least, for now.
In Davao City, the 911 hotline connects callers directly to police, as well as medical, fire, and other emergency units. By contrast, the nationwide version can directly connect only to police units. Then, it’s up to police units to reach other emergency units concerned.
Philippine Nationa Police (PNP) chief Ronald dela Rosa has said, though, that the arrangement should not have any effect on their mandated response time of five to 10 minutes for Metro Manila.
That said, it’s worth noting that having a number that’s easy to remember is already a big help.
