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911 emergency tech is starting to expand its presence in PHL

By Joyce Reyes-Aguila

TOWARD QUICKER and improved service, the response to road accidents, security incidents, and health-related emergencies is adopting new technology in various areas across the archipelago. The partnership with private firm NGA (Next Generation Advanced) Philippines has enabled various local government units (LGUs) and even national agencies such as the Philippine National Police (PNP) to deploy state-of-the-art emergency solutions for the population.

If you’re truly empowering every Filipino with the ability to dial 911, who does want to get that?” NGA Founder and Chief Operating Officer Don Ferguson told members of the media in a recent visit to the country. “What we discovered was that there are many different numbers for emergencies in the Philippines. This causes a lot of confusion about what number to dial. Then if you can get through to the command center, you have to explain your location. We saw that a lot of work was needed here. We started to get a lot of interest. There was a strong response. Everyone we spoke to wanted the United States’ 911 system in the Philippines.”

The company began deploying its patented call-handling system that offers features such as on-demand location services. “Our technology allows us within the first minute to identify the location of a call,” NGA Philippines Country Manager Robert Llaguno explained. “More importantly, we can also identify where responders are, such as nearby fire stations, a hospital, or even a specific mobile patrol unit. And then if I need to, I can send a routing direction to that fire truck or officer.”

Mr. Llaguno added that collected information from the caller, such as identification, medical background, and a brief of the emergency situation are cascaded to the response center. “Now, you remove two steps (location and information) and actually even drive the call directly to the mobile patrol closest to the caller.” Dispatch centers have the capacity to transfer calls, initiate a conference call, and play back a conversation as they perform a triage.

The local command centers are equipped with a dashboard that can identify abandoned calls, including prank calls. The PNP’s E911 National Office utilizes this feature to call back people and resolve pending actions in the dashboard. The government agency began implementing the new emergency system in August last year in response to the directive of then Department of Interior and Local Government secretary Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos, Jr. to LGUs and appropriate national government agencies to establish their 911 centers and adapt the latest technology in the country’s national emergency program.

In a company release, Mr. Llaguno explained that the features of NGA’s technology, including its Internet of Things (IoT) compatibility, international standards, redundancy, and resiliency will future-proof the emergency capabilities of the PNP. “On top of that, NGA technology is able to ingress various types of available systems or applications. We can integrate with local government’s CCTV systems, and provide enhanced location and situational awareness for frontliners and first responders. We can integrate with instant messaging applications and provide an omnichannel queue. Emergency 911 services can now be accessed through SMS or instant messaging apps, targeting the millennial population of our nation. NGA’s technology is also fully redundant and telco-agnostic, providing 99.999% of uninterrupted service and uptime guarantee,” he said.

NGA Philippines is the local affiliate of NGA 911, a California-based company that innovates emergency calling technology based on the industry standards of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) of the United States and the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) of Europe.

The town of Morong, Rizal was the first to activate the NGA 911’s technology in the Philippines, followed by the city of Alaminos in Pangasinan. The latter reported that most of its emergencies to-date were vehicular accidents. Cebu City activated its refreshed emergency response center last month and Cagayan de Oro is slated to launch its 911 system soon.

Recently, the Philippine National Police, through its Office of Communications and Electronics Service (CES), advised the general public that it could now call 911 (then press 1) for emergencies during the holidays. “The 911 number is now in effect throughout the country and the PNP, bolstered by state-of-the-art emergency response technology provided by NGA 911, can respond to calls within three to five minutes,” a release maintained.

CES Director Police Brigadier General Warren Gaspar Tolito said that the PNP can now better and more quickly respond to emergency calls in Metro Manila and provincial areas because of its enhanced E911 capabilities. “The PNP’s quick-response operations are a direct result of the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) Revitalized Emergency 911 initiative, its CORE system powered by NGA 911 LLC, a leading 911 service provider of Next Gen Technology of the United States,” the release quoted the police general as saying.