COCPO chief assures media access to info

By URIEL QUILINGUING Contributing Editor

Media practitioners covering the police beat may ask for information directly from police station commanders, the head of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (COCPO) here said Friday, May 27.

Police Colonel Aaron M. Mandia, COCPO director, said station commanders including law-enforcers in the field know best what happened on the ground, during a closing program of the 41st Press Freedom Week observance at Philtown Hotel.

“All information need not come from me,” Mandia, who was in civilian attire, told about four scores of local media industry workers, roughly half of them Cagayan de Oro Press

Club members, in mixed Tagalog and English.

He admitted there were calls and text messages he cannot answer at once, either he was talking to somebody else or in a meeting or a conference, yet he will always find a way to respond to queries later.

Although he has not fully learned Bisayan, after two decades under the turf of the Police Regional Office-10, including almost two years as acting and full-fledged city police director, yet he said it was not an obstacle in his dealings with the press.

He said COCPO has a designated spokesperson, but it doesn’t mean that no other person can speak on behalf the city police, on the belief that “the police is part of the media” so the public may know what they’ve been doing.

This, Mandia said, was the reason why he asked all 10 police station commanders to join him in guesting the Cagayan de Oro Press Club’s sponsored “Meet the Press” forum over a week ago, thus ensuring unfettered flow of information.

Mandia said he is thankful to all those who responded in dispatch to their requests during police operations, saying they cannot proceed and succeed without media reporters and village leaders.

He also recognized the press in creating a positive image of COCPO under his watch, thus the PRO-10 conferred on him the “Best Senior Police Commissioned Officer for Operations” for two consecutive years (2021 and 2022), and that he would be vying for national honors again. The COCPO head said his two-year tour of duty as city police director would end next month, even if he would wish to stay and the request of the city mayor for extension of his services, because staying would delay career movements of many.

He turned 50 years old Sunday, May 21, last week. Mandatory retirement age for PNPA graduates is 56. Roughly three years after his completing a public safety course from the Philippine National Police Academy in 1997, upon the request of Cagay-anon Police Brig. Gen. Felicisimo V. Khu Jr., Mandia reported at the PRO-10 headquarters at Camp Alagar, Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro. (MT)