GENARD Abejo, the City Hall employee detailed at the City Prosecutor’s Office arrested in a police entrapment operation for alleged extortion and bribery, is accusing the policemen who arrested him of violating his privacy.
Abejo is charging officials of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the Police Regional Office-Northern Mindanao’s Anti-Cybercrime Group and two top prosecutors in the city and region of violating the Data Privacy Act of 2012 when they allowed transcripts of the supposed text messages recovered from his mobile phones to be publicized.
Lawyer Alejandro Jose Pallugna, Abejo’s legal counsel, said the text messages from Abejo’s two confiscated mobile phones and four sim cards were publicized without his client’s consent.
“Gi-confiscate iyang duha ka cellphone, ug upat ka sim packs, human niadto giendorso sa CIDG didto sa Cybercrime Group unya ilang gi-break ang code, gi-ablihan ang sim pack, unya gitranscibe ang text messages where naay more than 500 names sa phone book. Gibutang sa usb, unya gi-distribute sa mga tao, sa media (They confiscated his two cellphones and four sim packs, they endorsed it to the CIDG’s Cybercrime Group then they broke the code, transferred the sim pack and transcribed the text messages where there were more than 500 names in the phone book. They saved it in a usb then they distributed it to the public, to the media),” he said.
“Naa didto tanan ang messages sa private persons, utang sa cabinet, bugas (The messages from private persons, cabinet loans, rice are all there), and these are private persons, so this is a gross violation of privacy act of 2012, kung ang usa ka tao magtext gikan from A to B, then moreply si B paingon kang A, ang pasabot niana private kana nga conversation (if a person texts from A to B, then B will reply to A, it means that conversation is private),” he added.
Among the officials charged with violation of data privacy act are CIDG Head Melgar Devaras, Chief Inspector Berlito De Guzman, Police Officer 1 Jun Raafas, chief of the Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) in Northern Mindanao, Regional State Prosecutor (RSP) Jaime Umpa, Assistant RSP Irene Meso, City Prosecutor officer-in-charge Merlynn Uy, and the members of the CIDG and ACG who are in-charge of the description, transcription, and storage of evidence relating to the mobile phones taken from Abejo.
City Prosecutor Merlynn Uy called Abejo’s move “desperate to muddle the issue.”
“Mr. Abejo stands accused in court for robbery/extortion and graft/corruption for demanding money in exchange for a draft resolution. A fact-finding investigation is still on-going to uncover his other cohorts. The ACG report on the contents of his two confiscated mobile phones was used solely for the purpose of the investigation,” Uy said.
“He should know the difference between what is his right to do and what is the right thing to do,” she added.
But Pallugna said the authorities could have at least informed Abejo and the private persons included, that they were going to extract the conversations of the mobile phones.
In the event that the extraction of the text messages is to aid investigation, Pallugna said they could have informed Abejo the parameters of the action.
He said the prosecutors should have contained the information to themselves and refrained from giving a copy of the information to the media.
“Kung walay kinahanglan na consent kay para sa (If there is no need for consent since it is for) investigation and prosecution, ila untang gi-inform at least si Genard Abejo sa unsay (they should have at least informed Genard Abejo on what are the) parameters and security na dili ma-violate ang privacy, dili lang kang Abejo, apil na ang more than 500 names and contacts nga naa sa cellphone (in order to not violate his privacy, not only Abejo, but also the more than 500 names and contacts on his cellphone),” he added.
“Ang nakadaot sa mga prosecutors, kay kung ila lang untang gi-contain within themselves as part of the internal investigation, walay makareklamo, naa pa gyuy gitawag nga electronic data processor sa CIDG apan gi-distribute gyud nila (What made the prosecutors wrong was that they should have contained the data within themselves as part of the internal investigation, there will be no complaints, and there was this electronic data processor of CIDG yet they distributed the data). They should respect the privacy of persons, private conversations,” Pallugna said.
Abejo also petitioned the court to issue a writ of habeas data to enjoin the respondents to stop the continued production of copies of the data/information taken from Abejo's phones, cease the distribution of the data to any persons, destroy any existing copies of it, provide a list of people who have received a copy and order them to destroy it too and enjoin any of the persons from presenting the data as evidence in any proceeding.
Regional State Prosecutor Jaime Umpa said he welcomes the filing of the case saying Abejo, or any person, has the right to file any case through the prosecutor's office.
“The problem now is to solve it, ganun lang naman (that is all). Mas maayo nuon (Its better), the more the merrier, para din ma-discuss yun sa (so they can discuss it on a) proper court, so we welcome that move,” Umpa said.
