The country’s official contract tracing application StaySafePh has around one million registered users, still far from the target of more than 50 million registrations to be fully effective to combat the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), said Multisys Technologies Corp., developer of the app.
In virtual press briefing, David Almirol Jr., Multisys founder and chief executive officer, said at least 50 percent of the Philippine population should register to StaySafePh for the contact tracing app to be fully effective.
Almirol said local government units (LGU) have to implement the use of the app and citizens must download and use the app to make it more effective.
However, the challenge is on the LGU implementation as they have to enter the probable, suspected and confirmed cases in their areas, he said.
“The effective way to use it, the LGU should use it and the citizens should use it. This is the perfect contact tracing,” Almirol said.
Almirol also said the management and operation of StaySafePh will be fully turned over to the Department of Health and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Last April, the government approved the use of StaySafePh in government agencies and LGUs as the contact tracing app for COVID-19.
In a Facebook post, Eliseo Rio, former DICT undersecretary, warned the government should not only use StaySafe as the official government contact tracing app.
Multisys is partly owned by PLDT Inc.
