The irony of it all

Lucid Interval

First posted 03:18am (Mla time) Oct 25, 2005
By Rowena Guanzon
INQ7.net

I NEVER thought I would see the day when we would be quoting a law during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship to make a point, but we did on Oct. 21. Milabel Cristobal Amar, two other women lawyers and myself joined Joel Cadiz, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and his vice president Feliciano Bautista Jr. in the rally of farmers and urban poor led by Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Bayan Muna and Gabriela. We were in the frontline of the march of about 10,000 that started in front of University of Santo Tomas (UST) and ended at the Gotesco building, a couple of blocks away from Mendiola Street.

Twenty-nine years ago, I was among the students from the University of the Philippines who were hit with a water cannon and nearly beaten up by a truncheon-wielding anti-riot squad. Last Friday, standing for hours near Gotesco because the police stopped us from marching to Mendiola, the irony did not escape me that we were using a Marcos law to insist on our right to assemble

and rally against the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

Before the march could begin, police officers approached to inform us that we had no permit, and seeing that there were lawyers from the IBP, sent a police superintendent who is also a lawyer. Cadiz informed him that by operation of law, we were deemed granted a permit to rally in Mendiola, pointing to a provision in Batas Pambansa (BP) 880 that states: �The mayor or any official acting in his behalf shall act on the application within two (2) working days from the date the application was filed, failing which, the permit shall be deemed granted. Should for any reason the mayor or any official acting in his behalf refuse to accept the application for a permit, said application shall be posted by the applicant on the premises of the office of the mayor and shall be deemed to have been filed.”

BP 880 was enacted in the last months of the Marcos dictatorship, on Oct. 22, 1985. After 13 years of suppressing the people�s rights to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, Marcos� stamping-pad legislature passed a law that was �better late than never,� and which the citizens have to rely on to this day, until repealed.

While the negotiators insisted on our right to proceed to Mendiola, the police superintendent agreed that the next negotiation be done in Liwasang Bonifacio, the plaza near downtown Manila for which he said the rallyists had a permit from Mayor Lito Atienza. The march proceeded until stopped by an anti-riot squad near Gotesco. The first two rows of the police were composed of rookie policewomen, who displayed discipline. Behind them were policemen, and about 6 paces away, a fire truck.

BP 880 requires the police to use �maximum tolerance,� the highest degree of restraint. Hence, Gloria Arroyo�s �calibrated preemptive response� (CPR) is clearly illegal. Separated from the anti-riot squad only by their shields, I analyzed the situation. CPR depends entirely on the judgment of the commanding officer, without complying with the provision in BP 880 that law enforcers may not use water cannons or similar anti-riot devise unless there is actual violence or serious threats or violence or deliberate destruction of property.

CPR means the anti-riot squad can advance or hit the rallyists even if there is no actual violence from the rallyists — hence the word �preemptive.� Under BP 880, law enforcers must be at least 100 meters away from the area of activity. This is not followed under the Arroyo administration. The policewoman nearest me was six inches from my nose.

Because of her single-minded focus on staying in power, Arroyo is turning this country into a police state.

Although its constitutionality is doubtful because it impinges on the people�s right to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, BP 880, until repealed or declared unconstitutional, is the law that governs rallies or assemblies in public places. Mayor Atienza and his legal officer, as well as other mayors should study this law intently so they will realize their error last Friday. The facts and the law are as follows.

The rallyists had applied for a permit for an Oct. 21 rally in Mendiola. The office of Mayor Atienza received the application on Oct. 11. Instead of acting on it within two days as required under BP 880, the mayor issued a permit with modified conditions on Oct. 20, a day before the rally, allowing use of Liwasang Bonifacio and not Mendiola. He also set ridiculous conditions, such as that �the Anti-Noise and Anti-Littering Ordinances of the City of Manila shall not be violated� and that there be �no motorcade nor marching from any point to Liwasang Bonifacio.� Did the honorable mayor expect us to fly to Liwasang Bonifacio?

Not content with that, the permit stated that it could be revoked at any time without prior notice from the Office of the Mayor! Gerino Tolentino Jr., who signed for the mayor, is either ignorant of the law or did not study it. By law, the mayor should have acted on the application for a permit within two days. If he disapproved it or made modifications on what the rallyists could do, then the applicant could go to court to contest it, because Section 6 of BP 880 states that the mayor must issue a permit unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the public assembly will create a clear and present danger to public order, public safety, public convenience, public morals or public health.

The mayor can only deny an application or issue a permit with modified conditions, such as change the venue of the rally, if there is �imminent and grave danger of a substantive evil.� Even so, the mayor shall immediately inform the applicant, who must then be heard on the matter. All of these provisions of the law were violated by Mayor Atienza, for which he is at least administratively liable. Those who were injured by the police during the rally can also sue the City of Manila for damages.

Since Mayor Atienza acted on the application way after the two-day period allowed by law, then the applicants� permit was �deemed granted� under BP 880. Yet, the police officers stuck to the conditions set in the unlawful permit granted by the Mayor, repeatedly saying they had to follow orders. When the law is clear, it needs no other interpretation. But the lawyer-police officers who faced the IBP lawyers last Friday must have had lost their knowledge of statutory construction the minute they donned their uniforms.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 at 4:39 pm and is filed under INQ7 Columns, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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