By Liza Agoot
BAGUIO CITY – To ensure that people are well informed about the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has installed a system that will provide free Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) to the residents of Mankayan town in Benguet.
Mankayan Mayor Frensel Ayong on Wednesday said the project is a joint undertaking of the DICT, the Mankayan local government unit (LGU), and Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC) to provide connectivity to the primary vaccination site established in the town.
“It is a DICT-initiated project with our collaboration in support of the health services,” Ayong said.
He said the DICT installed the equipment that will provide 16Mbps (megabits per second) internet signal at the Carlos Palanca Jr. (CPJ) center.
Ayong said the CPJ center is being used as a vaccination center. It is near Lepanto hospital and the Lepanto Elementary School and Lepanto High School.
He said LCMC provides and shoulders the electricity consumption used at the center, as its counterpart in the agreement.
The mayor said another gadget is installed at the town center that also provides connectivity to the Rural Health Unit (RHU) where people converge to access free Wi-Fi.
Ayong said the program was originally only for the CPJ center but they requested that free Wi-Fi be installed also at the town proper.
According to the DICT, the free Wi-Fi connection is not only during the conduct of the vaccination program.
“Forever na dun. DICT said it is direct to the satellite without being dependent on the towers of PLDT, Globe, and Dito Telecom,” the mayor said.
With available internet connection, he said they can also require establishments to subscribe to StaySafe for faster contact tracing.
The mayor said the municipal government will also ask Caretaker Congressman Eric Yap to help replicate the connectivity in other areas of the town through the free internet service program of the government.
Mankayan town is a four-hour drive from the capital town La Trinidad. It is host to the gold mining company Lepanto. (PNA) -rir
