Get phone reconfigured when it can’t dial 911

DAVAO Central 911 chief Emmanuel Jaldon told the public to get their phone reconfigured or replaced by their respective telecommunication companies if they could not directly contact 911.

Jaldon, in his Facebook post yesterday, explained that it’s the fault of the Public Safety Answering Point (Psap), the call center responsible for answering 911 calls.

He said there are some telecommunication companies who did not configure the cellular phones they sell to call 911.

“Some telcos sales outlets are selling cellphones that are not configured to call 911. If you experience dialing for emergency and you heard a voice prompt asking you to dial 117 that means your phone is not configured to call 911,” Jaldon said.

This developed after many complaints raised by callers who claimed not being able to ask for emergency assistance.

“This is not a Davao City 911 Psap issue,” he said.

Central 911 is also interconnected with telecommunications firms such as the Philippine Long Distance Telephone

Company, Bayantel, Globe, Smart, and Sun Cellular.

From January to June 2017, Central 911 received a total of 24,062 emergency calls, 16,247 calls or 67.52 percent were responded while the remaining 32.48 percent were not catered, cancelled, or referred to other agencies.

Calls were broken down to medical emergencies (8,019), law enforcement incidents (7,676), search and rescue (283), fire auxiliary services (154) and K9 services (115). JCR