DAVAO City's emergency response hotline 911 has been launched nationwide by the Philippine National Police (PNP) on Monday.
As of 12:01 a.m., 45 agents have been receiving calls in the monitoring center and passing it on to concerned units.
PNP chief Director General Ronald Dela Rosa said the monitoring center has since received 2,475 calls but only 75 of it were legitimate, 304 were prank calls, while the rest were dropped calls.
Dela Rosa warned prank callers that they can be traced by the PNP.
"[Prank calls] will result to clogging [of] our lines at 'yung talagang legitimate na emergency calls [ay] hindi natin na-aadress kasi nag-clog up ang linya. They have to refrain from doing such," he said.
Dela Rosa said that for the meantime, the PNP will be the sole respondents to the concerns of callers as they have yet to establish coordination system with the local government units, Bureau of Fire Protection, and other government offices.
He added that all PNP units have already been alerted to immediately address concerns reported to them.
"Ito ay konektado directly sa mga unit commanders. Kapag unit commanders ang na-inform personally talagang mabilis 'yung responde kasi they are the commanders," he said.
The hotline 911 may provide services such as ambulance assistance, response on vehicular accidents.
It can also be called upon reports of incidents creating trouble like drag racing, drinking in public places, harassments, illegal drug pushing, and riots, among others.
President Rodrigo Duterte has pushed for the nationwide implementation of the hotline 911, patterned after the same system he implemented in Davao City where he served as mayor for two decades.
Presidential Communications chief Martin Andanar said the government is working on making the hotline free of charge.
"I do believe that the P5 that globe and smart is charging is based on the good practices in the United States. I understand in the US they do charge and one of the reasons they charge is to discourage the prank callers," he said. (Sunnex)