Information power

It’s only a matter of time before the Cebu Provincial Board (PB) resolves the little issue of appointing an information officer that may or may not be complicated by the entry of a new administration.

At the time the ordinance was introduced by PB Member Arleigh Sitoy, former governor Gwendolyn Garcia tapped the Sugbo TV and Sugbo News to promote her administration’s programs and by extension, herself and her family of elected government officials that included her father and two brothers.

In essence, the ordinance’s intentions were good; to institutionalize the Provincial Information Office as a department free of the whims and caprices of the sitting governor and the PB whose main task was to promote the programs of the provincial government regardless of who sits at the top.

It was, based on Sitoy’s description, to be a provincial version of the Philippine Information Agency whose officials and personnel enjoy plantilla status along with the salaries and benefits specified in their positions.

According to Provincial Information Officer Ethel Natera, such an ordinance isn’t necessary owing to an existing ordinance that provides for the appointment of an existing provincial information officer with the entry of each new administration.

It was only during the nine-year tenure of Garcia that the province’s information office became a public relations arm of the Capitol, as evidenced by the sacking of the incumbent provincial information officer at the time and the eventual takeover of the governor’s office of the information dissemination of the Capitol’s programs.

To say that the Capitol’s information office won’t be politicized and used as a campaign propaganda machine of the sitting administration is but wishful thinking based on past experiences with the national government’s information agencies like the PIA and the Philippine News Agency.

Information officers, by virtue of their role, serve at the pleasure of their appointing officer who determines how their policies and programs will be promoted and disseminated to the public.

It was during Garcia’s time that the provincial information office not only printed monthly magazines but also broadcast programs like Sugbo TV that reached not only Cebuanos but a wider audience outside of the province as well.

It would be interesting to see how Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III would use the provincial information office to promote his programs given that his approach so far has been to skimp on spending funds unless absolutely necessary.

Whatever the results, we hope Sitoy’s goal of a provincial information office that informs rather than doles out propaganda would be achieved regardless of who sits in the Capitol’s top seat.