4 Cebu City barangays to use free mobile app for emergency response

Emergency dispatch personnel of Barangays Apas, Santo Niño, Poblacion Pardo and Tisa complete the first phase of their training at the Guardian research and development center. Flanking them are 7Core CEO and SugboTek Managing Director Cloyd Dedicatoria (left) and SugboTek Operations Manager Franklin Caruana (right). contributed photo

Emergency dispatch personnel from the four barangays in Cebu City completed the first phase of training on how to respond to emergencies using the free mobile emergency app Guardian.

With Barangays Apas, Santo Niño, Poblacion Pardo and Tisa now equipped with the I.T. hardware installed with the Guardian software and connected to the Guardian database, they are now set to respond to emergency calls.

This developed as homegrown software developer SugboTek launched during Sinulog 2018 the free Guardian app, now downloadable from Google Play for Android phones and soon from the AppStore for iPhones.

SugboTek engineers had trained the call center and dispatch operators of the four barangays that have participated in the pilot execution of the mobile app.

Their barangay captains handpicked them to man the emergency command center for their respective localities.

Their training included procedures and protocols applied today by 911 Emergency in the United States.

“What was more important was getting the staff engaged in the unique protocols inherent in Guardian,” said Cloyd Dedicatoria, managing director of SugboTek that developed the mobile app over the past four years.

Using global positioning system (GPS), the Guardian operator would know the specific location of the caller on Google Maps and even get the latest street view of the area using Google Earth for easier and faster coordination.

Despite no internet connection nor load for mobile data, places with intranet facilities that provide wifi connection like Barangay Apas and a city in Metro Cebu can be accessed by Guardian users.

The Guardian app can be used even during major emergencies like in the aftermath of a super typhoon and earthquakes when power outages are likely as the system could deploy mobile transmitters powered by generators and solar panels.

Dedicatoria signed a memorandum of agreement last September with Barangay Captains Ramil Villena Ayuman of Apas, Pancho Ramirez of Santo Niño, Altea Recuya Lim of Poblacion Pardo, and Phillip Sabior Zafra of Tisa.

Zafra, who is also president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), signed a separate memorandum of understanding that the ABC will get on board more barangays within this year.

Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino witnessed the signing of both documents and promised to facilitate the rollout of Guardian “to benefit the poorest of the poor” throughout the Visayas, his area of jurisdiction as presidential assistant.

SugboTek committed to provide technical training to barangay staff who will operate the Guardian system at their respective barangay centers, and orientations to at least 100 emergency spotters and reporters per pilot barangay.

A subsidiary of ICT systems integrator 7Core Communications, Sugbotek is a software development company focused on open source, machine-to-machine, as well as desktop and mobile base technology. /