DILG asks pranksters: Don’t call 911
MANILA, Philippines —The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) yesterday appealed to the public not to flood the national emergency hotline 911 with prank and unnecessary calls.
The DILG discovered that only 37,440 or 0.2 percent of 18.483 million calls received by the hotline last year were legitimate emergencies. About 13.74 percent or 2.54 million were prank calls.
Records also showed that 16,734 were non-emergency calls while 9.716 million were incomplete calls.
“For every prank or incomplete call that you make, there could be other people out there whose lives maybe in danger or who need emergency assistance but could not go through because the lines are busy,” Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año said.
Año said some of the calls were either abandoned, disconnected, dropped or garbled.
He urged the public to exercise discipline when dialing 911 hotline, which is for legitimate emergency and public safety purposes.
In June 2018, President Duterte signed Executive Order 56 designating 911 as the national emergency hotline, replacing Patrol 117 for better coordination during disasters.
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