8888 received more grievance on dissatisfaction to SSS and LTO services.
The 8888 hotline, dedicated to receive people’s complaints, is the new national emergency telephone number in the Philippines.
Since it was launched concurrent with the month of August, it was flooded by complaints on the poor services of Social Security System (SSS) and Land Transportation Office (LTO), two agencies that before 8888 has ever existed, have already been subjected to criticisms.
The complainants expressed grievances on the delays in releasing SSS IDs and the long intervals in processing pension benefits of retired members.
LTO made it to the second spot as with the most number of dissatisfied clients. Most complaints are regarding the undelivered vehicle plate numbers.
Civil Service Commission Chairman Alicia dela Rosa-Bala said that despite the grievances, the 8888 hotline proves to be serving its purpose. She advised the complainants to complete the details regarding their grievances before reaching to the hotline to avoid miscommunication and to make it easier for the call center agents receiving the calls to take the notes down.
Dela Rosa-Bala said, there are 25 call center agents whom the complainants can talk to and they work on rotation to cover the whole 24 hours of hotline operation.
In accordance with Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s State Of The Nation Address, where he highlighted the use of a national grievance hotline number for valid complaints against erring public officials, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has assigned code 8888 as the national complaint hotline number.
8888 was made official through the NTC Memorandum Order No. 09-07-2016 and started to function in August 1. Included in the memorandum is the directive to connect all 8888 calls to the Civil Service Commission and Presidential Action Center Citizens Complaint Center.
Aside from the 8888, the government emergency hotline 911 also started to be accessible since August 1. The 911 is manned by 30 call center agents who receive emergency calls and relay the information to the proper agency for immediate response.