THE Police Regional Office (PRO) in Negros Island Region is waiting for the official order from the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters regarding the guidelines on media access to spot reports.
Senior Inspector Armilyn Vargas, public information officer (PIO) of PRO-Negros, said Thursday, September 14, that they received advance information about it through a text message.
Vargas said they were informed that the public community relations officer or PIO of police offices and police stations will have to make press releases about significant incidents to be relayed to the media instead of directly providing them with spot reports.
Vargas said it would also be better for the PIO to provide daily updates, but not all police stations have PIOs.
While waiting for the official directive, Vargas said they will continue to provide the local media with blotter reports, as they also coordinated with PRO-Western Visayas for proper guidelines and new format of providing reports to the media.
The Bacolod City Police Office and the Negros Occidental Provincial Police Office are now under the supervision of PRO-Western Visayas after the Negros Island Region was abolished by President Rodrigo Duterte through Executive Order 38 last August.
The issue came after the Central Visayas police received a memorandum ordering them not to release spot reports to the media.
On September 13, the PNP clarified that it has not issued a new directive on barring media access from spot reports, but they only reiterated the PNP-Media relations policies and manual issued on February 18, 2014.
The higher headquarters also clarified that they only reminded police officers in precincts to review the classification of documents that can be released to the media and should take into consideration its security classification, if it is forming part in a criminal investigation, and if the subjects include minors and women, particularly in rape cases.
Aside from getting information from spot reports, media can also interview the police investigator on the case or its designated spokesperson.
