Banks urged: Tap services of telecom providers

By Vency D. Bulayungan

LAGAWE, Ifugao - -The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council here requested two banks in the province to tap other cell sites as service providers in order not to paralyze operations during disasters.

Gov. Eugene Balitang, who chairs the PDRRMC, said that the council will pass a resolution requesting the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine National Bank to make use of the services of Globe and Smart telecom so that in case one bogs down, the other one can still provide the necessary services needed in order that the banks will not go offline to the detriment of the clients.

Both banks have Globe as service provider and they went offline for more than a week because the cell site of Globe bogged down at the height of Typhoon Pedring.

In an earlier interview with Normandy Salagubang, LBP-Lagawe Branch Manager, he said that their computers are linked to their main office through Globe as the service provider.

He explained that with no signal, they are offline and there are transactions which they cannot attend to such as withdrawals because they cannot see the balance in the ATMs.

Those who are still maintaining bank books though can withdraw as they are not affected.
Salagubang said that aside from Globe, they are also maintaining a landline connected with DIGITEL.

However, the lines of said telecommunications were also destroyed by the two typhoons. “The landline should have been used by us to call up our other branches so they can check the balance for us but the lines were also destroyed he said.

Parents were complaining because they can not send thru the bank money of their children studying outside the province and yet it was examination time.