Saturday, November 08, 2008 PNP to implement 2 police blotters
THE Philippine National Police (PNP) on Friday said it is coming up with two sets of blotter at police stations in the wake of criticisms brought about by a directive denying media practitioners access to the file.
At the weekly Talakayan sa Isyung Pulis, Police Community Relations Group Director Leopoldo Bataoil said the first blotter will be for "general patronage" and would therefore be open to members of the media.
"We are coming up with two blotters, the first blotter for general patronage if you will call it that and the other one is confidential, it contains ongoing operations," said Bataoil.
He said the second blotter would be restricted from media access. " It is within the law to preserve or the identity of minor-victims and even the names of suspects should not be disclosed."
"That is our rejoinder," said Bataoil, referring to the controversial order of PNP Chief Jesus Verzosa denying media access to the blotters.
Blotters have been open to the media in the past decades.
The decision of Verzosa has been criticized by various media organizations and even the Commission on Human Rights.
Bataoil said Rule 86 of the Implementing Rules and Regulation of Republic Act 9344 states that authorities have the duty to "uphold confidentiality," specifically in cases involving minors.
The identity of child victims should not be disclosed to the media and to the public, he further said.
"This (two blotter system) is what we want to implement in our police stations so that we would not be put in a difficult situation," said Bataoil.
Malacañang is asking Versoza to clarify and explain his latest directive restricting public access to the police blotter, which is a “public record.”
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said the right to information is “very basic” and the blotters are considered as public records “and therefore should be available.”
He said there are, however, certain situations when entries in the blotter are barred from being released especially if it pertains to cases affecting national security, minors, and requested by the persons involved in the case.
“These are clear guidelines in the law. But as a general rule, blotter entries are public record and therefore they should be made available to everyone. As to the sensitivity of information there, this will have to yield to existing laws, if there are any. Or sometimes we leave this to the sensitivity, the good sense of the media in handling this information,” he said.
The press secretary is confident Versoza or the Department of the Interior and Local Government would not clamp down on public information or restrict freedom to information.
“They would be the last ones to do that. That's why we we'd like to see this clarified first before we can even ask them to rectify. We'd like to see first what this is all about,” he added. (VR/JMR/Sunnex)
