SoLeyte Disaster Mgmt. Office to enlist teachers in SMS early warning

SoLeyte Disaster Mgmt. Office to enlist teachers in SMS early warning
By ES Gorne
Philippine Information Agency
August 9, 2011

MAASIN CITY, Southern Leyte (PIA) -- The Provincial Disaster Management Office (PDMO ) in Southern Leyte will soon enlist the school teachers in the SMS technology in disaster reponse particularly in sending out alerts during inclement weather.

To properly guide the teachers on determining whether to allow the children to come to school especially during inclement weather by sending them the official weather forcasts of PAG-ASA via text messaging, Jason Calva, head of “Strengthening Disaster Preparedness thru the SMS technology project” reported during the “Action, Solusyon, Inisyatibo” radio program over DyDM this morning.

Calva said he hopes to gain the cooperation or support of the school teachers to become actively involved in the early warning during unpleasant weather conditions hence it will aide them to give proper notifications to schoolchildren.

That the schoolteachers in the province will be among the registered moblie users that will be recipient to the text messaging alerts thru the PDMO.

Earlier PDMO had coordinated with the “warning agencies” of the government, such as the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Philippine National Police (PNP), the Red Cross, Provincial Engineer’s Office (PEO), Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO), Department of Health (DOH, Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and the provincial environment office, to avail the disaster preparedness thru SMS technology, Calva said.

He shared that during the last visit of Chis Pablo, the World Bank (WB) representative, together with executives of Smart Communications and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), it was already established an infoboard system of centralized broadcasting using text to registered mobile users has worked quite well.

The project, funded by the WB and supported by Smart and PBSP, was a pilot undertaking In the Philippines since September 2010 for two years, and the success here would mean this will be replicated in other provinces of the country, and in Vietnam, Calva informed. (opt/PIA SoLeyte/esg)