PRC to public: Refrain from making prank calls

MANILA, Philippines — Stressing that saving lives is no joke, the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) urged the public to refrain from making prank calls to its emergency hotline number 143.

PRC chairman Richard Gordon made the plea yesterday after data from?their operations center last Aug. 14 showed that nearly 78 percent of the calls received were pranks.

Of the 521 calls with meaningful client engagement the PRC field offices received that day, 405 or 77.73 percent were pranks while 73 or 14.01 percent were blood requests, he pointed out.

He added that 42 or 8.06 percent were network related calls while one or 0.19 percent was a request for a swab test.

“Let us deter abuse and disallow prank calls to PRC’s 143 hotline because we need to respond to emergency situations as urgently as possible,” Gordon said in a statement.

He reminded the public that many calls that require immediate attention such as emergencies or accidents fail to get through when irresponsible individuals use the 143 hotline.

With road accidents and other emergencies happening in the country, the PRC said it is important that people can reach its hotline in a matter of seconds.

“We need to be more careful with the use of 143. It should be dedicated to calls that require immediate assistance,” PRC secretary general Gwendolyn Pang said.