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By JOEY NACALABAN
and NITZ ARANCON
Correspondents .

THE Feb. 27 inter-office memorandum that directed city and provincial police directors in northern Mindanao to validate if there was a real Isis threat turned out to be authentic contrary to what Camp Alagar officials have claimed.

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The police memo contained classified information and an investigation has been started to find out how a copy of the document was leaked to the public, an ABS-CBN report quoted Camp Crame spokesman Supt. John Bulalacao as saying.

It was Bulalacao, speaking on behalf of Camp Crame, who confirmed the authenticity of the Feb. 27 document from Camp Alagar.

The memo, signed by Camp Alagar intelligence head Supt. Rodolfo Hernandez, ordered police directors in Region 10 to validate a text message that Isis bombers and expert bomb makers, who posed as fishermen, have come from Indonesia and were supposedly planning attacks in key cities across the country, including Cagayan de Oro.

While there is much room for doubt about the authenticity of the text message, Hernandez’s directive in the memo to check it out is real.

On Tuesday, Camp Alagar officials disowned the memo, saying it was “purely fabricated and maliciously publicized to malign not only PRO-10 but the entire PNP.”

Police regional director Chief Supt. Timoteo Pacleb called it “fake news” while Camp Alagar spokesman, Supt. Lemuel Gonda, said document circulated on social media was a forgery. The latter also alleged that Hernandez’s signature in the memo was faked.

Camp Alagar’s key officials were not in their offices when this paper went there to ask comments about Bulalacao’s confirmation that the memo is authentic. This paper was then told that the key officials all left for Camp Crame.

In a text message, Gonda did not give a categorical answer — he just said an investigation is ongoing to check the source of memo circulated online and that Camp Alagar’s cybercrime unit was working on it.

Chief Insp. Ignacio Gamba III, chief of Camp Alagar’s anti-cyber crime unit, said his office has started working to find out who was behind the circulation of the memo.

Copies of the memo were posted on “PRO-10 PIO News Update,” a Facebook chat group administered by Gonda with local reporters and columnists as members.

This paper checked the chat group and noted a 10:19 am post of the memo on Tuesday by newspaper columnist Nef Luczon who then asked, “Unsa ni ka tinood? Gipasa ni sa mga fb msgr [Facebook Messenger]?”

This was followed by a similar 6:46 pm post of the memo by broadcaster Errand Mercado without any comment or question.

On the same day, Gonda replied to Luczon’s query by posting a statement by Chief Supt. Pacleb on the memo circulating on Facebook.

Gonda’s post reads: “PRO-10 categorically deny (sic) the preparation nor (sic) the dissemination of the memo. It is purely fabricated and maliciously publicized (sic) to malign not only PRO-10 but the entire PNP. The signature of C,RID (Hernandez) is forged. Nonetheless, we will validate the information and also investigate to determine the source of such fake memo.”

Other than Luczon and Mercado, copies of the memo were reportedly circulated by different people much earlier on Facebook.

Yesterday, Gonda said, “We will address the communication gap as to the operation security is concerned.”

“The bottomline is that said information, whether true or not, was already validated in the lower units… and it was found out (to be) not a true  information or negative presence within AOR or area of responsibility…,” said Gonda, assuring that the police was on top of the situation and the region has remained peaceful and orderly.

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