DILG wants cops to be able to respond to emergency calls within 3 minutes

PNP General Hospital emergency room in Camp Crame, Quezon City (RYAN LEAGOGO/INQUIRER.net)

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) wants the police nationwide to be able to respond to emergency calls within three minutes.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla made this pronouncement after a simulation exercise at the Quezon City Police District operations center in Camp Karingal on Monday.

“You can say that’s the case now in Quezon City. It’s good. Our aim is for the whole Philippines to be like this,” Remulla said in a press briefing after the simulation exercise.

When asked if there will be sanctions for police units who would fail to meet the three-minute response time, Remulla said, “That will be part of their metrics for promotion.”

READ: Police respond to 78% of 911 calls within five minutes – PNP

The national police received 5,187 emergency calls between August 8, 2024 and January 5, 2025.

These figures are based on the data previously acquired by INQUIRER.net from the Philippine National Police Communications and Electronics Service (PNP CES).

Police officers responded within an average of 3.2 minutes in 4,050 of these calls; while the response time was at an average of 12.8 minutes for 1,137 of the calls.

READ: DILG will launch a unified 911 emergency call system beginning July

At the same press conference, Remulla announced that the DILG will begin rolling out a unified nationwide 911 emergency call system by July./apl