PNP denies posting FB messages threatening critics

From GMAnetwork.com:

The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Monday evening denied posting messages on social networking site Facebook threatening to prosecute people who post messages critical of it or its personnel.

In a statement, PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr. said the PNP will also investigate the posting of the message that it described as “offensive, threatening and malicious.”

“We shall have this incident investigated ASAP. You will be updated on the developments,” Cerbo said in a statement posted on the PNP’s own Facebook page.

On Monday, many Facebook users found on their walls what appeared to be a series of posts by the “Philippine National Police (PNP). The supposed message claimed foul words against police officers “can be use (sic) as evidence now to file a case against you in a court of law.”

It also claimed the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group’s “Anti-Transnational Crime” is now conducting investigation using equipment that may be more sophisticated than other cybercrime units in the world, and that its personnel can “detect the location of the owner of a Facebook account of a certain person.”

But the supposed posts turned out to be a photo uploaded on Facebook.

The posts came amid protests over the newly signed Anti-Cybercrime Act, where critics said its provisions on offenses like online libel may violate the right to freedom of expression.

“The PNP categorically denies any official connection to a message which appeared in one particular Facebook account found by many to be offensive, threatening and malicious,” Cerbo said.

He noted PNP official statements such as press releases intended for public consumption are published in digital form through the official PNP website or Facebook under the account name pnp.pio.

“Further, said official statements can be released individually to our media friend both in hard and digital copies in the name of the PNP Public Information Office,” he said. — KBK, GMA News