FORMER provincial administrator John Venice Ladaga and former provincial legal officer Niel Pacana said there was nothing wrong with burying of government documents at the Misamis Oriental-operated jail as discovered July 2 by the Uy administration.
In a press conference a day after, Pacana said all non-needed government documents must be disposed in accordance with the National Archives of the Philippines Act and Data Privacy Act.
He said that disposing these recyclable documents in a landfill would be a violation of the law.
“These are all confidential documents. Dili nimo basta-basta i-expose na sa landfill,” Pacana said.
On the night of July 2, provincial legal officer Angel Lim stumbled upon the buried documents at the Misamis Oriental provincial jail in Initao town and reported this to the media, questioning the circumstance surrounding the discovery.
But Pacana maintained that all these documents are from ten years back and already deemed as value-less.
Among others, these consist of personal data sheets of contracted employees, notices of salary adjustments and more.
Pacana assured that the Human Resources Management Office has digital copies of all these documents should they be needed anytime.
He said there is not enough space for the “value-less” physical copies of the documents, thus they needed to be disposed.
