A CITY government official has warned those making prank calls to the Central 911 emergency hotline to stop these calls as this will impede the delivery of needed services.
Although he admitted that there has yet to be legal action, Alfredo Baloran, City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office chief, on Monday said some of the nuisance calls are considered malicious calls, while others are not.
Last year, the hotline received 299,006 considered as nuisance, while only 48,316 were verified emergency calls. Based on the data hotline received an average of 25,000 nuisance calls a month compared with just 4,000 emergency calls. Also last year, 10,493 calls were categorized as “inquiry calls”
However, Baloran explained that many of those nuisance calls were not considered malicious as some of those were being done by children and other people who wanted to check how the response to the calls were done.
“Ang uban dinha ma-record siya as prank calls kanang naga-testing lang gani og tawag, just to prepare themselves ba. Dili gyud nato na siya maiwasan,” Baloran said.
“Naa pu’y naga-call ang uban mga bata, dili pud nato gina-discount kay kung ang bata lang ang naa sa balay, dapat ang bata kabalo pud siya mu-dial og 911,” he added.
He said personnel supervising the hotline were ordered to be patient and to educate the callers on its function. “Mao na atong advise sa mga call-takers nato: receive the call and educate the caller,” he added.
However, he said running after the callers takes a lot fo resources and time, but he hopes that the people will stop these calls.
