Pasay cop sacked for media leak?

A Pasay City police officer, who helped media secure a copy of the report on the robbery of a Belgian delegate to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), has been relieved.

Police Officer 3 Bonnie David, assigned at the station’s Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operations Task Force (AID-SOTF), was temporarily relieved by his superiors yesterday, a day after he distributed the report to media men covering the city police beat.

However, Pasay City police chief Superintendent Rosendo Franco clarified yesterday that the leak was not the reason for David’s relief.

"It was just a coincidence that he was the one who distributed the report. It so happened that he failed to a conduct a follow-up on a case as ordered," Franco explained in a phone interview.

The city police chief stressed that there had been no news blackout on the robbery incident involving the Belgian and they did not deprive media reporters of information.

"Our police blotter here has always been available to reporters. We had nothing to hide," he said.

Franco also denied radio reports that said he scolded David for distributing the information to media practitioners, saying "I had no reason to do so."

However, he admitted that they were ordered to let the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) release the report.

Franco stressed that the case was controversial enough that it had to be forwarded to the NCRPO.

Last Tuesday, George Brion, a Belgian delegate attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union general assembly, lost cash and credit cards to knife-wielding robbers in Pasay City.More than 11,000 policemen have been deployed in the area of the Philippine International Convention Center and hotels to secure the gathering of some 1,500 legislators from almost 150 countries. – Edu Punay