ORANI MONITORS COMPLIANCE TO ORDINANCES

LAWS are crafted primarily to safeguard the well-being of the citizens and to maintain peace and order in the society. To achieve this goal, said laws have to be implemented. During implementation, monitoring is a major factor to measure compliance.
To ensure compliance on various municipal ordinances, the Local Government Unit of Orani under the leadership of Mayor Efren “Bondjong” Pascual embarked on a state of the art monitoring system through the establishment of the Orani Command Center (OCC).

Among the municipal ordinances that they monitor compliance are responsible pet ownership, no smoking, traffic rules, road obstruction, garbage disposal.
To be inaugurated on August 5 of this year, said command center started operating last July 15. Strategically located at the heart of the town proper just behind the municipal hall, it is at the center of the “spider web” composed of the police station, fire station, health center, disaster risk reduction and management office, to name a few for faster coordination and referral.
Presently manned by five staff for 16hours from Monday to Sunday (2 shiftings), Orani MIS Head, Mr. Ryan Castro, said that they are in the process of having it operational, 24/7.
Castro added that since they used fiber optic cable for their internet connection, all the 48 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in different strategic areas of the town give clear reception. They can even provide free internet connection to schools located in areas reached by these fiber optic cables. The areas are the main roads from boundary between Samal and Orani to Arko, going to the Orani Public Market up to the Fish Port. To date, there is free internet connection within the vicinity of the town plaza of this first class municipality.

According to Mr. Donald Tuvera, team leader, from the Command Center, they can even remind violators thru a public address system manned by Mr. Mark Donneil Perez.
The spacious command center has a conference room where most of the coordination meetings are now held. Owing to its efficient communication system, aside from monitoring compliance to ordinances, the command center will also be very useful in safeguarding the security of the people as well as in cases of emergency such as during typhoons, vehicular accidents and even in commission of crimes. Their marshalls are issued radio/dispatch systems with GPS to facilitate reporting and referral of cases to concerned agencies/authorities.

Mr. Castro added that to date, their operations are guided by four (4) procedures: 1. Incident registration – which they are doing manually for a start; 2. Dispatch – where they quickly refer reported incident to the concerned agency for action; 3. Post incident report – they do documentation and give an update on the status of the incident reported to them; 4. Release of copies of footages (upon request) – only to concerned parties after securing necessary approval from authorities.
This only shows how technology can be very useful not only in monitoring compliance to ordinances but more importantly in saving lives and properties as well as in deterring the commission of crimes.