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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider 'Bato' to law enforcement officials: Follow protocol on top secret info

'Bato' to law enforcement officials: Follow protocol on top secret info

Published Nov 20, 2019 12:00 am
By Hannah Torregoza Neophyte Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on Wednesday urged law enforcement officials to strictly comply with tactical and strategic procedures governing classified data, emphasizing that only those officials involved in actual operations should be informed about “top secret” information on a “need to know” basis. Senator Ronald Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa
(PRIB photo by Cesar Tomambo/ MANILA BULLETIN) Dela Rosa made the call following President Rodrigo Duterte’s assertion he cannot trust Vice President Leni Robredo especially with respect to the handling of classified information concerning anti-crime operations because she is an opposition stalwart and also because he does “not know her.” “Since that document is highly-classified, it may be classified as top secret, I suppose. Because ang laman niyan (its contents are) ay enemies of the state. So security of the state is at stake here. So it is on a need to know basis,” Dela Rosa said in a radio interview. “May tactical and strategic considerations iyan hindi lang yung puro emotional, puro psychological considerations lang. Puro political considerations, hindi naman ganun (There are tactical and strategic considerations, not only emotional, psychological, or political considerations),” he said. Dela Rosa defended the President’s statement against Robredo, saying the Chief Executive’s doubts about the Vice President were not all related to her being a member of the opposition but because the President has no trust in the people surrounding her. “As I have said, nasa power ng Pangulo ang pag-declassify niyan. So nasa kanya iyan kung pagkatiwalaan ka niya at sigurado siya sa iyo na hindi mag-leak ang information. Then maybe, pwede niyang i-share sa iyo (The President has the power to declassify information. It is up to him if he will trust you and he is confident that you will not leak information. Then maybe he will share it with you),” the senator explained. “Pero kung hindi siya sigurado then he has all the reasons na huwag muna (But if he is unsure of you then he has all the reasons not to share with you yet),” added Dela Rosa. “Kahit na wittingly or unwittingly, meron makapag-screenshot diyan, or makapag-picture diyan sa document na ‘yan, napakadali ang leakage sa mga dokumento na iyan. So iyan ang reason sa classification ng top secret (If someone takes a screenshot or picture of the document, it’s so easy to leak it. So that is the reason for the top secret classification),” he said. Dela Rosa, a former Philippine National Police chief, said that even other government officials are not privy to information regarding the persons in the high-value drug target list that Robredo has been requesting as co-chair of the Inter-Agency on Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs. “Hindi iyan alam nila, pag iyan ay may tatak na top secret, top level echelon lang ng gobyerno ang nakaalam niyan (If the document is stamped top secret, only top echelon government officials know about it),” he said, reiterating that only officials with direct involvement in the operations are only the ones given access to classified information. “In the case naman of Vice President Robredo, she is not directly involved in the operations, policy-making functions lang yung sa kanya (are her only purview), so I don’t think that it is very necessary,” he said.  
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