That emergency alert may be annoying, but don’t turn it off

DECODED: TECH, TRUTH, AND THREATS

That sudden, loud alarm from your phone can be irritating. It can interrupt a meeting, wake you up, or make everyone in a quiet room reach for their phones at the same time.

And sometimes, the alert may not even be relevant to where you are.

I have heard reports from users in provinces far from Palawan who received an emergency warning intended for Palawan. When something like this happens, the natural reaction is understandable: Why am I receiving this? Maybe I should just disable emergency alerts.

Please don’t.

Emergency alerts are designed to get your attention precisely because, during a real emergency, getting information even a few minutes earlier can make a difference. They can warn us about severe weather, flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis, evacuations and other threats to public safety.

Yes, the sound can be annoying. Yes, receiving an alert for a place hundreds of kilometers away can be frustrating. But annoyance is a small price to pay for a system that could one day give you and your family critical information when it matters most.

But government must do its part

Keeping emergency alerts enabled does not mean we should simply accept poorly targeted warnings.

The government agency responsible for issuing an emergency alert must make sure that the information is timely, accurate and, whenever technically possible, properly geotargeted.

If people in provinces far from Palawan are receiving a warning specifically intended for Palawan, authorities should examine why. Was the geographic targeting too broad? Was the warning transmitted nationwide intentionally? Was there a technical limitation in the distribution system?

These questions matter because emergency warning systems depend on public trust.

Send too many irrelevant alerts and we create alert fatigue. People eventually stop paying attention. They dismiss warnings without reading them or, worse, disable emergency alerts completely.

That could become dangerous when the next warning is actually meant for them.

Government agencies and telcos (Globe, Smart, and DITO) should continuously improve the accuracy and geographic targeting of emergency alerts. The objective should be simple: warn everyone who may be in danger without unnecessarily alarming people who are not.

Users have a responsibility, too. Don’t disable emergency alerts just because one woke you up, interrupted what you were doing or warned you about an emergency happening somewhere far away.

Think of it like a smoke alarm. You don’t remove the batteries because of a false alarm. You find out what caused the false alarm and fix it, while keeping the alarm ready for a real fire.

The same principle applies to emergency alerts on our phones.

• To government: make the alerts accurate, relevant, properly targeted and trustworthy.
• To users: keep them enabled.

Because the next emergency alert that makes your phone scream might actually be meant for you.

And on that day, what sounds annoying today could become a warning that helps save your life.

But despite my sound advice, if you still want to disable this useful service, here’s what to do if you’re using an Android phone:

1. Open Settings on your phone.
2. Look for Safety & emergency. Depending on your phone manufacturer and Android version, you may also find the option under Notifications.
3. Tap Wireless emergency alerts.
4. You should see the types of emergency alerts your phone can receive. The available categories may vary depending on your device, mobile network and location.
5. Turn off the emergency alert categories that your phone allows you to disable.

The exact menu may be different on Samsung, HONOR, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other Android devices, so the easiest method may simply be to open Settings and search for “Wireless emergency alerts” or “Emergency alerts.”

If you’re using an HONOR phone like me, the path is Settings > Sound and haptics > More sound settings > Wireless emergency alerts.

Before you switch anything off, however, think about why the feature exists. An irrelevant alert today may be annoying, but a properly targeted alert tomorrow could warn you about a typhoon, flood, tsunami, earthquake or another emergency affecting your community.

My recommendation remains the same: keep emergency alerts turned on.

Instead of encouraging people to disable emergency alerts, I would rather call on the telcos and government agencies responsible for these warnings to improve their accuracy and geotargeting. For me, the solution to irrelevant emergency alerts is not a population that stops listening. It is an emergency alert system that people can trust.