LEGAZPI CITY?The provincial government of Albay has given 50 units of wireless public address system (PAS) to the Legazpi Diocese to be distributed to parish churches across Albay.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda turned over the PAS units to the Diocese of Legazpi at the Saint Gregory Cathedral to equip the parishes with emergency gadgets to fully mobilize residents in times of disaster.
?Parishes, by experience are inevitable partners of municipal, city and barangay local government units during calamities because both sectors can mobilize the people and are equally capable of providing emergency shelters aside from the school buildings and the institutionalized evacuation camps donated by the government of Spain,? Salceda said at the turnover rites on Nov. 23.
He said the PAS could be used by parishes in times of calamity such as storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and other disaster events that might occur in their respective areas.
He said the distribution of the equipment was part of the disaster-preparedness and risk-reduction program of the province.
Salceda turned over the PAS units to Auxiliary Bishop Lucilo Quiambao, acting administrator of the Diocese of Legazpi.
Quiambao thanked Salceda for his gesture of involving various parishes in disaster preparedness and equipping the parishes with the PAS.
The Diocese of Legazpi is composed of 44 parishes and quasi-parishes in the 15 towns and three cities of the province with over a million parishioners.
The wireless portable PAS is described as similar to a hand bag (or small knapsack) weighing about two kilos and about 12 by 10 inches in size.
It operates on a built-in rechargeable battery (suited for brownouts) that can last for more than 10 hours on continuous operation and can address a crowd of 100 to 150 people during a barangay pulong-pulong, seminar and even during classroom discussions, in the case of the academe.
Each unit comes with free Lavaliere microphone (clip type), a wireless regular microphone and a wired microphone that can all be used simultaneously.
