Provide an analysis on the public safety environment in the present era by describing the broad

spectrum of Public Safety and the challenges it is confronted with.

Public safety is defined as the protection of the general public. Public safety and public security should
be read altogether, which is the prevention of and protection from any events involving the public
that would endanger their safety and security involving danger, injury or property damages. In
psychology, Abraham Maslow used a broader definition of safety in his Hierarchy of Human Needs
wherein he said that, “safety is one of the fundamental needs of a human being. This does not only
include personal safety but also security of our health, money, belongings, jobs and even our families.

In the present day and age, public safety is much more needed and wanted to maintain the integrity
and security of the greater public. We can provide examples wherein public safety evolves in our
society. One example is the conventional manner in which the public is being protected by Public
Safety Officers during times of calamities and disasters such as conflagrations, earthquake, floods and
tidal waves. It would also involve public security from any man-made calamities, example of which is
the Marawi siege as well as in any other wars or any like-eventualities. Another example is the
unconventional way and thus can be referred to as a modern way of protecting the public from any
untoward incident. This includes the modern use of electronics, technology and social media. The
increase in crimes using technology would be of great concern by the public.

As we know modern technology, electronics and social media can create chaos and advance fake
ideology and/ or belief that would endanger the public. Although the freedom of expression is
guaranteed in our constitution as innate right of every Filipino citizen, it should not infringed the
rights of others and create problem in the minds of the public.

Thus, as part of public safety, the formulation and implementation of programs and policies and
procedures to achieve the said public safety should be in kind of all policy making body. The easy
accessibility of the public to certain information and technology should be of great help in promoting
public safety as well as public security.

In this regards, Public safety has a broad spectrum of medium. Public safety spectrum includes the
critical communications that is vital to the first responders charged with the protection of life and
property of the public. This means of communication despite being broad and has many means
should be harnessed by the government with ease for easy response from the officers for any calls
from the public. Any means of communication directly to the public safety officers should be made in
accordance with how much ease the public can call for help.

However, not all cities in our country has this kind of leverage. Highly urbanized cities has a very
sophisticated means of communication but the challenged is with the other cities that are
components or with less classifications. Further, each cities that has its own emergency response has
its own emergency number for responders and that the public should be familiar with the same. This
is one of the challenges that we faced. A tourist from Davao city visits Cebu cannot dial an emergency
number for any emergency situation when in Cebu because of the fact that there is no central and
uniform number. Davao City has 911 emergency hotline. In Dipolog City, 117 is the emergency
hotline, in Cebu- 166. On the other hand, National Emergency Hotline is 911, MMDA is 136, PNP is
117, BFP has different numbers as well as Coast Guard hotlines.

These many spectrum is a challenged for at least using a central hotline for all Filipinos. The
connectivity of the country has been increased rapidly but the challenge is still there in providing a
more centralized and single public safety numbers throughout the Philippines.