Mandaue’ command center gets an upgrade

The once flat screen televisions are now a video wall where personnel manning the command center can monitor several areas. | CDN Digital photo – Mary Rose Sagarino

MANDAUE CITY, Philippines — The Mandaue City government is modernizing its command center to further monitor incidents and events in the city.

The renovation and upgrade of the state of the art command center started last May 2020.

The former flat-screen televisions are now changed to a led video wall so that it can last longer especially since the operation and monitoring are 24 hours.

Operators are tasked to monitor incidents that has been captured by CCTV cameras on the streets. Some cameras can be controlled from the command center, and they can be rotated 360 degrees, and zoomed to capture plate numbers in case of an accident. If there is a traffic incident or a heavy traffic in some areas, operators can manually adjust the stop lights.

“Ang karsada sa Mandaue, agiaanan gyud sa tanan, muadto’g Cebu city, sa Norte, Lapu-Lapu muagi gyod og Mandaue ug wala ato’ng command center, it would be total chaos sa Mandaue kay ato’ng dedicated personnel nag monitor ni sila,” said lawyer John Eddu Ibañez, executive secretary of Mayor Jonas Cortes.

(The roads of Mandaue is really a gateway for all. Those who would go to Cebu City from the north, those from Lapu-Lapu will also pass by Mandaue. If there is no command center, it would be total chaos in Mandaue because today dedicated personnel are monitoring areas in the city.)

The Mandaue City command center has a video wall where personnel manning it can monitor several areas in the city. CDN Digital | Mary Rose Sagarino

Aside from monitoring the traffic, they also have a river eye or cameras installed near the rivers to monitor the water level during bad weather, if evacuation is needed, there are buttons to be pressed from the command center for warning signals. 

” Ang Mandaue city murag catch basin kung naay muuwan sa bukid, mubaha gyud ang Mandaue kay mudagayday ang tubig diri, usa sad ni ka monitoring on top sa ato’ng mitigation flood nga gipangbuhat sa dakbayan,” Ibañez said.

(Mandaue is like a catchbasin if it rains in the mountains, Mandaue will be flooded and the floodwater will stay longer here. This is one area to monitor on top of our migitation of flood that the city is implementing.)

Personnel from the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM), Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (DRRMO), PNP, and Bureau of Fire (BFP) are manning the command center.

The city has ensured that the modernization and upgrade of their command center will be funded because of the importance of traffic and emergency response./dbs