AN OFFICIAL of the Police Regional Office (PRO)-Northern Mindanao on Tuesday, March 6, branded the supposed police memorandum on the presence of Isis bombers in Mindanao which had gone viral on Facebook messenger as fake.
PRO-Northern Mindanao spokesperson Superintendent Lemuel Gonda said the memorandum was “purely fabricated and maliciously publicized to malign not only PRO-10 (Northern Mindanao) but the entire PNP.”
The supposed confidential memo was dated February 27 and has the subject "Conduct validation re ISIS Bombers and expert bomb makers."
It was signed by Superintendent Rodolfo Hernandez, chief of the Regional Intelligence Division (RID) and addressed to all provincial and city police directors.
But Gonda said the signature of Hernandez was forged.
The directive contains an information that the Isis terrorists have sneaked into the country passing through Indonesia to Borneo and have reached Mindanao by pretending to be fishermen.
"Their targets are the populated areas while cities mentioned include Zamboanga, Davao, Manila, Cebu, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and cities of Northern and Southern Luzon. They are based now in the remote provinces along with the local and some foreign Jihadists but they will move closer to their target areas," the memo reads.
The memorandum also orders the police to warn the public against going to populated areas such as malls, parks, among others.
"PRO-10 (Northern Mindanao) categorically deny the preparation nor the dissemination of the memo," PRO-Northern Mindanao regional director Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said.
However, the Northern Mindanao police will have to validate the information and probe the source of the fake memo.
Gonda said netizens have no way of detecting whether a certain police memos are fake or genuine.
He said social media users should verify this kind of information first with the local police or military before spreading it.
"Dili ma-spot ang memo kung tinuod or dili kay with the technology now everything can be imitated. Dapat i-report nila sa PNP and verify it its true or not para ma-validate," Gonda said.
"Its negative per validation sa all lower units. We assess this through intelligence fusion with all intelligence units from the PNP and AFP and other governments agencies," he added.