By EJ Roque/ PNA
MANILA — President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s disgust over telecommunications firms due to the inaccessibility of the 8888 hotline shows his aspiration to ensure efficient delivery of government services for the public’s general welfare, Malacañang said on Wednesday.
“Given all this, it is clear why the President would be displeased when our countrymen’s efforts to access the 8888 Hotline are frustrated,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.
Panelo said the Duterte administration established the 8888 hotline to integrate the public’s complaints in government services and avoid confusion.
“Before the issuance of Executive Order No. 6, public avenues for redress of grievances were largely fragmented among different government agencies and the public was left in doubt as to whom to contact and request for an update as regards the status of their complaints,” Panelo said.
“Thus, the President envisioned the creation of an integrated system for the consolidation, monitoring and addressing of complaints that would be accessible to every Filipino 24/7, which is prompt and responsive,” he added.
Panelo said the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) is promoting the 8888 hotline through a television program addressing citizen complaints.
He expressed confidence on telco networks’ capabilities to deliver the needed access of the hotline to the public.
“We trust that telecommunications networks that act as crucial access points for the system shall endeavor their very best to improve the capacity and resiliency of the system because at the end of the day, Hotline 8888 is meant to ensure the general welfare of the Filipino people,” he said.
Duterte on Sunday lamented that Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), Inc. failed to provide its subscribers easy access to the hotline.
“The present setup can’t accommodate all the calls. It’s always busy. Tell PLDT. If not, I’ll shut down their business. Oo, (Yes) that’s true. I don’t want to brag, but they owe government eight billion. No President has ever asked for payment,” Duterte said in the vernacular during his speech at the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) campaign rally in Cebu.
