The University of the Philippines (U.P.) Administration continues to neither confirm nor deny that Malacañang has appointed the three (3) regents with expired appointments before the March 10, 2010 constitutional ban on such appointments by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo kicked in despite a Diliman Diary story confirming that these appointments had indeed taken place.
As of the afternoon of March 22, 2010 or seven (7) working days after March 11, 2010 when the Diliman Diary had originally confirmed over the telephone with the Office of the Executive Secretary that President Arroyo had reappointed Regents Francis Chua, Nelia Gonzales and Abraham Sarmiento to fresh terms of office, the staff of the Office of the University Secretary refused to even confirm or deny anything on the telephone, apparently in response to a Diliman Diary interpretative story dated March 19, 2010 saying that the terms of office of several of the regents had potential problems (http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2010/03/have-they-all-gone-underground-or-what_19.html).
"Write a letter of request," were the extremely delayed instructions given to the Diliman Diary on the seventh day, and only after six days of calling up to find out any developments in view of the great interest by our readers on the topic.
The Diliman Diary has corespondingly written a letter of request which we have also sent via registered mail as well as scanned (please see embedded scan above) and emailed to the Facebook account of University Secretary Dr. Lourdes Abadingo (please see embedded scan below). Under new international standards, a Facebook message sent to a recipient may be considered the electronic equivalent of sending a letter and having it received (http://www.switched.com/2008/12/17/aussie-couple-get-legally-served-via-facebook-lose-house/).
The Diliman Diary is hoping that the U.P. Administration will keep the public interest in mind and exercise due transparency in acknowledging the appointments by providing copies of the documents despite the potentially problematic nature of its contents as documented by the Diliman Diary in several of its stories. The tax-paying public deserves nothing less.
"Under new international standards, a Facebook message sent to a recipient may be considered the electronic equivalent of sending a letter and having it received (http://www.switched.com/2008/12/17/aussie-couple-get-legally-served-via-facebook-lose-house/)."
ReplyDelete-This doesn't say anything about "international standards". It was just used one time coz no other form of communication could be used to reach them. Anyway, at least you sent it via registered mail.
Hello there. I do stand by my comment, "Under new international standards, a Facebook message sent to a recipient may be considered the electronic equivalent of sending a letter and having it received." It's already happening in Australia, the United States and New Zealand (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10124967-38.html and http://www.thelocal.se/20244/20090624/). Admittedly, this doesn't mean that just because foreign courts allow for this that this applies to our local courts. On the other hand, I don't having any intention of filing any suit against the University Secretary who is a fine person. However, I did send her the letter via registered mail and posted this online and emailed her via Facebook to dramatize the wrongness of the position of the U.P. Administration in hiding information that should be made public as U.P. is no private corporation but a public trust. While I was already able to get the records from the Malacanang Records Office (Please see Diliman Diary, March 24, 2010), the fact that even up to now I have not received any reply speaks volumes about the U.P. Administration's lack of transparency on the issue of the tenures of the U.P. regents. - Chanda Shahani, Editor
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