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[av_heading heading=’Investigation into hotline 8888 pushed ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY PRINCE GOLEZ
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Tuesday, December 5, 2017
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MANILA – Sen. Leila de Lima was pushing for an investigation into the effectiveness of the government’s citizen complaints hotline.
De Lima’s call for a probe via Senate Resolution No. 550 was based on news reports that most calls to 8888 were unrelated to government services if not “unserved” at all.
The hotline, launched in August last year via Executive Order No. 6, is dedicated to receiving complaints against corrupt and underperforming government officials and employees.
“Congress has the responsibility to conduct a probe and study the implementation of 8888 Complaint Hotline as to its effectivity and equal accessibility to all citizens,” de Lima said.
Citing news reports, the senator said the hotline served 54,743 calls but failed to take in around 1.4 million from August to December 2016 due to inadequate manpower.
Half of the served calls were unrelated to compliance with the Anti-Red Tape Act or any government frontline service, de Lima said.
“Every peso of Filipino taxpayers’ money must be spent on programs and government services that actually work and are responsive to their needs,” she said, “and not on programs launched merely to cosmetically or superficially fulfill campaign promises.”
That telecom companies charge them P5 per minute if they call hotline 8888 via their mobile phones has “dismayed” many citizens, de Lima said.
Calling via landline is free but “not everyone has access to landlines,” and this makes the hotline “not accessible to all,” she said.
“Prepaid mobile phone users would not be able to access the hotline either by call or SMS (short messaging service) if they have no remaining credits,” said the senator./PN
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