Phil. Daily Inquirer, Dec. 06, 2005
MAKATI City residents can look forward to quick and prompt police response in case of an emergency.
The local government has finished installing the Global Positioning System (GPS) in 35 of its mobile vehicles, mainly used by policemen and other security and rescue agencies, the City Hall announced yesterday.
Mayor Jejomar Binay, inspired by the advanced emergency response systems used in the United States, decided to install the GPS to beef up the city’s security and emergency response capabilities, Joey Salgado, Makati Information and Community Relations head, told the Inquirer yesterday.
The GPS is a software program that pinpoints the location of vehicles on a 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) basis, allowing the tracker to immediately deploy the vehicle nearest to an emergency, he explained.
“It will help cut the response time of Makati’s emergency units,” Binay said in a statement.
Salgado said that before, it would take policemen and other rescue operatives 15 minutes to respond to a call for help. But with the GPS, they could get to the site of an emergency in just five minutes.
All tracking activities will be supervised at the Makati Command Center, which is being set up on the 24th floor of the city hall. This makes Makati the first local government unit to open a command center in the country patterned after those in the US.
When fully operational, the center will be able to answer emergency calls from various points in the city and immediately dispatch response teams from the police, fire, emergency health and rescue services or other public safety agencies, added Salgado.
