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PH Red Cross: Stop prank calls on emergency hotlines

Philippines | National

PH Red Cross: Stop prank calls on emergency hotlines

By Manila Bulletin

Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Richard Gordon urged the public not to abuse the organization's emergency number, "143" as it is meant to save lives.

House bill penalizes prank callers to emergency hotlines with jail terms, fines — (Photo from Pixabay)

“Let us deter abuse and disallow prank calls to PRC’s 143 Hotline because we need to respond to emergency situations as urgently as possible,” Gordon said in a statement on Saturday, Aug. 19.

Gordon stressed that numerous emergency calls which require immediate attention ended up being unreceived due to irresponsible users, contacting the emergency hotline just for a “prank.”

As the data shown by the PRC's Operations Center, out of 2,343 calls answered last Aug. 14, 1,822 calls, or 78 percent, disengaged right after greetings from PRC's representatives, while only 521 calls, or 22 percent, had meaningful client engagement.

“Out of the 521 calls, 405 or 78 percent with meaningful client engagement were prank calls while 73 or 14 percent were calls for blood requests,” it said.

In addition, 42 or 8 percent of meaningful engagements were for network-related calls and only one, or 0.19 percent was for a swab request.

Furthermore, Secretary-General Gwen Pang noted that it is necessary to guarantee that people may contact the PRC's emergency hotline in a few seconds or less, given the growing number of accidents that occur on the roads as well as other emergencies.

House Bill 3851, or “An Act Penalizing Prank Callers to Emergency Hotlines,” said prank callers to emergency hotlines may soon face jail time and fines if the proposed measure of Parañaque 2nd District Rep. Gus Tambunting becomes law. (Rhowen Del Rosario)

Read: https://mb.com.ph/2022/9/1/house-bill-penalizes-prank-callers-to-emergency-hotlines-with-jail-terms-fines

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