Pampanga ID plan faces protests – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Pampanga ID plan faces protests
By Tonette Orejas
Central Luzon Desk First Posted 18:54:00 03/31/2011 Source: Inquirer.net

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines—The provincial government plans to impose a village registry system that would allow authorities to detect strangers, who may be car thieves, or warehouses that may have been coopted by car theft syndicates.

But civil rights groups have objected to the plan because, they say, it may violate privacy rights.

Fr. Eddie Panlilio, former Pampanga governor and now chair of the human rights group Defend-Central Luzon, said the proposed barangay information system and safety plan (BISSP) is illegal and unconstitutional.

The plan, contained in a proposed ordinance, was certified by Gov. Lilia Pineda as urgent when she sent it to the provincial board.

Advocates of the measure took note of the fact that the police had uncovered at least six hideouts of two car theft rings in Pampanga.

Panlilio said the BISSP was designed as a barangay identification system, which “violates the right to privacy and movement.”

The Supreme Court had ruled in 1995 that a proposed national ID system is unconstitutional, he said.

“Would a public official allow [their] children’s [mobile phone] numbers to find their way to public data banks, for example? Would carnappers have their personal data [out] in the open? The proposed ID system then will give more problems than offer solutions,” Panlilio said.

The Kapampangan Kontra ID (K2ID) said BISSP “threatens our rights to privacy and security because information involving our private persons, including our properties and relations, are going to be generated, inventoried, stored and centralized at the barangay, town and provincial levels in the name of ‘curbing criminality.’”

K2ID is a group of town-based civil society organizations.

K2ID said Pineda’s proposal, which many believe is supported by former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was an “overreaction” to the rise of criminality in the province.

“Instead of compelling the Philippine National Police units to perform their duties … the proposed ordinance intends to create a database that opens the people to abuse by authorities. Citizens must not be made to suffer the failure of the PNP in crime-fighting and prevention,” the group said.

Pineda on Thursday said she certified the measure as urgent last Feb. 7 to “protect lives and communities, ensure peace and order that is needed in economic development.”

In her letter to the board, Pineda said there was a need for the ordinance “considering the urgency of addressing the adverse effects of criminality and lawlessness on the provision of our basic services which we owe to our province and to our people.”

Related Articles

• Among Ed leads human rights group – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos (hronlineph.wordpress.com)