New app seen to help cops respond crimes

CEBU, Philippines — A command center for a newly-developed emergency dispatch and civilian reporting system will be installed in the Cebu City Police Office headquarters to improve police response.

The combined efforts of the local government unit, police, and non-government partners were sealed yesterday with the signing of the memorandum of agreement and understanding.

The signatories were Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, CCPO director Joel Doria, Councilor Philip Zafra, president of the Association of Barangay Councils, and the barangay captains of Apas, Santo Niño, and PoblacionPardo, as well as the representative of SugboTek Incorporated.

Through the program, the public is empowered using the application called GUARDIAN to be the first-responders to any incident by reporting it directly with the use of smartphone. The system will encode the data of the report and the command center will alert the nearest team to the area of the incident.

The application will be piloted in Barangays Tisa, Apas, Santo Niño, and Poblacion Pardo. The application will be made available to android and IOS users two weeks from now.

The developers are also targeting to integrate the system to the whole area of Cebu City before the Sinulog Festival to help counter criminal activities.

“Considering sa problema natin sa criminality at illegal drugs, mas mapapadali ang response ng police. Maganda po itong application, it is a community partnership,” Doria said.

Based on the latest data from CCPO, a total of 9,273 arrests were made from the month of July up to the present. There were also 6,508 operations made — 3,105 operations for illegal-drugs with 4, 816 persons arrested and 2,034 arrested for illegal gambling. A total of P290,654,532 worthof illegal-drugs were confiscated.

Doria said the command center will be set up in the new building, which will be turned over to the city police office by the end of September. (FREEMAN)