PNP chief leads successful 911 call to Batanes
TUGUEGARAO CITY—Philippine National Police chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III tested the capability and efficiency of the national 911 emergency hotline through a successful “test call,” albeit delayed by connection problem, to Batanes.
Torre, while guest speaker at the grand opening of this city’s Pavvurulun Afi Festival at the People’s Gymnasium on Aug. 9, was challenged to initiate the test call, which, after several delays due to dropped calls and intermittent signals, later became successful, earning cheers and claps from about 4,000 spectators.
Intermittent
“Batanes? Mapapahiya yata tayo (Make a call to Batanes? I might be put to shame),” he jestingly said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
While connection was made with Batanes, Torre admitted that the reliability of his 5-minute response time policy for 911 calls may still face intermittent telecommunication signals or “no connectivity” issue in areas with weak or no mobile signals.
Batanes, the country’s northernmost archipelagic island province that is part of the Cagayan Valley region, is about 162 kilometers north of Luzon and 190 km south of Taiwan. It is separated from the Babuyan Islands of Cagayan province by the Balintang Channel, and from Taiwan by the Bashi Channel.
Aside from communication issues, typhoon-prone Batanes has also become difficult to reach in recent weeks by sea or air because of the bad weather spawned by the prevailing southwest monsoon, or “habagat,” making travel to the province difficult, which also hampered the flow of commodities to its island towns.
Nonetheless, Torre’s call later on connected to all the police offices in Batanes—from the provincial office to all the town police stations in the province, which were beamed on an internet-capable LED television wall.
