Duterte to appoint head of 8888 citizens’ complaint hotline —Medialdea

MANILA, Philippines—President Rodrigo Duterte will appoint “in the next few days” an undersecretary to supervise the 8888 citizens’ complaint hotline, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said Friday.

In an interview over DZMM, Medialdea said government decided to “create another office” to take over the citizens’ hotline as they plan to incorporate an SMS system to it.

“It will be taken over by an undersecretary na maa-appoint maybe in the next few days,” Medialdea said.

“Talagang tututukan na ‘yan because dati it was under an office of a director but since  magdadagdag kami ng isang sistema na SMS (text messaging), we decided to create another office to man that and at the same time namo-monitor lahat ‘yung mga complaints na natatanggap at nasasagot to the best of their abilities,” he added.

The hotline was launched in 2016 to receive complaints from the public on red tape, corruption and other abuses in government offices.

It was established by the President through Executive Order No. 6 and functions under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission.

Earlier, the President expressed disappointment over the “always busy” hotline, even threatening to shut down PLDT, Inc. if the telecommunications giant does not expand the citizens’ complaint hotline for frontline government services.  /muf

READ:  Duterte to PLDT: Expand citizens’ hotline or face shutdown