Controversial cop who confiscated journalist’s phone in Traslacion gets promoted

The police official who confiscated the phone of a television journalist during the Traslacion last January got promoted.

Effective February 6, 2020, the Philippine National Police (PNP) Information Office announced that Police Brigadier General Nolasco Bathan was designated as Deputy Regional Director for Operations in the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).

Bathan was the subject of flak online after GMA report Jun Veneracion posted on social media his experience in covering the Black Nazarene procession.

Veneracion was using his phone to film “a commotion between cops and a hapless Black Nazarene devotee on Ayala Bridge in Manila,” when “a police general suddenly darted out of nowhere and snatched mobile unit.”

The journalist noted that the said police general “quickly moved away from the scene.” Veneracion identified the police official to be Bathan, whom he described to be “fuming mad, even threatening to confiscate my hand-held radio.”

While the situation pacified when Veneracion gave it some time before talking again, he said that when he tried to get his phone back, though Bathan apologized for ‘not recognizing’ who he was, when the phone was returned, the footage was deleted. Bathan denied deleting anything but Veneracion said that the feature of his phone brand where recently deleted files can be retrieved showed that the video was stored there.

After Veneracion’s post circulated online, aside from netizens, several government figures gave out statements including the PNP Press Corps and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.

[READ: PNP Press Corps denounces SPD chief’s ‘thug-like’ behavior for ‘snatching’ reporter’s phone]

Last January 10, the PNP Press Corps issued a statement calling Bathan’s action as “not only an attack on press freedom but also trample on the rights” of Veneracion. It added that Bathan’s attitude is unbecoming of a PNP member.

Police Colonel Emmanuel Baloloy Peralta will assume the post that Bathan vacated, as the Acting District Director of the Southern Police District.