LOCAL EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE AND DISASTER SYSTEM

LOCAL EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE AND DISASTER SYSTEM

 

Dear Mr. President: It is widely known that as of now, there is no integrated national system that would allow our citizens to ask for help wherever they are, using only their mobile phones. As it is supposed to be, anyone should be able to dial 911 from either a landline or a cellphone from anywhere, but that does not seem to be the case. 

 

As it is now, no one could call 911 from anywhere at any time, because depending on what city or municipality you are calling from, you may have to dial another emergency number, such as 168 or 117. And as it is now, depending on where you are, you could not directly dial the three-digit emergency 911 number, because you might have to dial a local area code, which defeats the purpose of a short number that is easy to remember.

 

Mr. President, given all these limitations, I believe that it is necessary to try another approach, and that is why I decided to work with a team of Filipino developers to come up with a homegrown local mobile app that could be a supplement to the existing 911 system. The Local Emergency Assistance and Disaster System (LEADS) is designed to receive mobile alerts from pre-registered users predominantly composed of private sector membership group of first responders. They serve to provide necessary assist to disaster management team of the LGU. At the onset of getting the first alarm report the emergency ID issued as a service ticket by the system. Copies of these ticket alerts will be issued by a local Command Center (COMCEN) managed by an artificial intelligence (AI) software that will be dispatched to each service group that is directly under the mayor. These could be the PNP, BFP, and the EMT units. The incident ticket information will then appear on the cellphone of the pre-registered member.

 

Mr. President, once all categories are filled up, the mobile app issues an alarm ticket as a reference for all service departments of the LGU. The geo-location of the original report is determined by the nearest cell site so that there will be no scammers or pranksters since all forensics info of the report are determined as the reports are completed and submitted. These actions are managed by the ground commander. All traces of actions taken by all the departments needed to completely respond to the threat appears as incident management updates. Only the ground commander on duty can go over the air to troubleshoot issues that may arise. So, whether it is fire, rescue, ambulance or police related, only one is responsible. It is the ground commander on duty who makes the reports, debriefs the mayor or talks to the press. 

 

As I mentioned earlier Mr. President, this is a much simpler supplement to the 911 system, and yet it could become more efficient in comparison. It is simple because all that are needed are mobile phones which everybody has anyway. Of course, the system would need pro-active mayors which you could easily mobilize, working perhaps with the DILG Secretary.

 

Admittedly, Mr. President, this system will only work if the cell sites are not down, and if the internet signals are not down. That is the reason Sir, why we need to back up this system not only with VHF/UHF radios, but also with satellite phones, preferably the heavy duty, military grade ruggedized which the private sector first responder group can readily afford.  While some might argue that these are expensive pieces of equipment, I will also argue that there is no price to the many human lives that could be saved by an efficient emergency assistance and emergency services support system. IKE SENERES/10-05-2024


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