EDITORIAL:
Maximum intolerance: When law perpetuates crime
The law is clear on free assembly. The law is clear on peaceful dispersals. There is no excuse for the heinous and frankly murderous acts perpetrated against a people who were only exercising their constitutional right to seek redress for grievances.
WE KNOW what happened -- we’ve seen it. In videos, in photos, in slow motion, from different angles. In black and white to hide the red. In color so the blood bleeds true.
On Wednesday, the national minorities, composed of indigenous people from all over the Philippines, and their progressive allies held an anti-United States (US) imperialism rally at the US embassy.
In the midst of the crowd, there was a police vehicle, and at the wheel was PO3 Franklin Kho.
The crowd of rallyists were dispersing. Orders had been given, “Ayusin na natin ang ating hanay.” The people were backing away.
Kho revved the engine, and rammed the vehicle straight into the people around him.
Once was not enough. As horror and screams filled the air, Kho stepped on the gas once more, and ran back and forth multiple times.
The rest is excessively covered, widely-disseminated history.
And as is the nature of society nowadays, comments have proliferated on social media, expressing assent, dissent, apathy, and some particularly outrageous conclusions.
“‘Yan kasi, pa-rally-rally,” some online comments read, in gist. “Wala namang permit.” The implication: The rallyists deserved what they got.
What they got were injuries. Around 50 protesters were hurt. A Sandugo convenor, Pia Macliing Malayao, got her foot crushed. Jessica Agustin, another rallyist, was pinned under Kho’s vehicle. The tire missed her head by only a few centimeters. Around 26 were collared by the police, among them two Lumad girls aged 14 and 15. They were released without charges.
But even the lack of permit should not have provoked the response it did. In section 12 Public Assembly Act of 1985 (B.P. 880), “When the public assembly is held without a permit where a permit is required, the said public assembly may be peacefully dispersed.”
The peaceful dispersal is to follow the “maximum tolerance” espoused in B.P. 880, which means “the highest degree of restraint that the military, police and other peacekeeping authorities shall observe during a public assembly or in the dispersal of the same.”
The Lianga Massacre, during which Lumad leaders Dionel Campus and Bello Sinzo were executed in front of hundreds of their people, and Emerito Samarca trussed up and murdered like a pig, is only one of many instances the Lumad were violated.
With all of this, the national minorities are perfectly within their rights--as per Article III, Section 4 of the Philippine Constitution--to march, to rally, to cry out their grievances. After all, “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.”
Which makes Kho’s response -- and indeed, the violent dispersal of the rally in general -- absolutely uncalled for. It is unlawful. It is a crime.
The law is clear on free assembly. The law is clear on peaceful dispersals. There is no excuse for the heinous and frankly murderous acts perpetrated against a people who were only exercising their constitutional right to seek redress for grievances.
Whether the comments section bothers to crack open a law book is neither here nor there. But if the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police, and especially Franklin Kho, do truly believe that they are serving and protecting, it would do them good to open a law book and learn who it is they are to protect, and how they are supposed to go about it.
It is those who have grievances to air, and justice to seek.
That means tear gas, smoke grenades, water cannons, or any similar anti-riot device should not be used unless actual violence, serious threats of it, or deliberate destruction of it was prove
There was no actual violence, no serious threat; no deliberate destruction of property. There was graffiti spray-painted upon the embassy walls, supporting President Duterte’s policy. There were paint bombs thrown at the embassy seal. No property was destroyed.
Meanwhile, over a thousand protesters were tear-gassed and water-cannoned, when those anti-riot devices should not even have been anywhere near the rally. Kho’s hit-and-run-and-run-again is not in the law, but the spirit of it, its violence, was expressly forbidden.
No matter how we try to slice it, the violent dispersal during Wednesday’s anti-US rally was unlawful, unconstitutional, and uncalled for. It is deeply, unambiguously criminal.
That is not at all what the national minorities came to Manila for. Amid the ubiquitous “bayaran”, “dilawan”, “bias” accusations are comments which manage to miss their point entirely:
“Umuwi na lang kayo [national minorities] at magtanim.”
To go home and plant again is, actually, the entire reason why 3,500 members of national minority groups camped out in the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman.
Unfortunately, 12 percent of Mindanao’s land -- or 500,000 hectares -- are covered with export crops such as banana Cavendish, cacao, oil palm, pineapple, rubber, and sugarcane. The Lumad (Mindanao’s indigenous people) do not normally plant these; they plant grain, rice, and root crops for their own consumption. When they resisted the large, multinational agricultural businesses (such as Del Monte and Dole) who wanted their land for planting, they were forcibly, violently displaced.