Activists at US Embassy protest face vandalism, illegal assembly raps
MANILA, Philippines — The two activists arrested on Tuesday after a lightning rally in front of the US Embassy on Roxas Boulevard have already gone through inquest proceedings for vandalism and for illegal public assembly, the Manila Police District said.
In an interview on ANC's Rundown on Wednesday morning, Police Maj. Philipp Ines said both will be brought to the custodial facility at MPD. He said that police exercise maximum tolerance towards protests but that there was a "blatant violation" of the law, which he said prompted Manila cops to arrest activists as they were dispersing after the lightning rally.
"They said it themselves, they did not have a permit," he said in Filipino. Under Batas Pambansa 880, activities like rallies need permits unless held at designated freedom parks. Ines said there are four in the city of Manila, and that police have "allowed" protests like lightning rallies outside these freedom parks in the past.
"We exercise maximum tolerance. But when they throw paint, that is unacceptable," he said.
Activists threw paint at the seal of the US Embassy on Tuesday morning as part of the protest, Ivan Sugcang — national chair of the Leage of Filipino Students — acknowledged in a separate interview on the same show.
"That was a small smudge on the US Embassy," he said in defense of the act, adding that was nothing "compared to the long history of human rights violations" that the US — the Philippines' treaty ally and former colonizer — had committed in the country.
Sugcang said that the protest was against moves that he said could drag the Philippines into the simmering rivalry between the US and China.
He added that BP880, which was issued during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., and its requirement of a permit for protests "cannot be higher than the citizen's constitutional freedom to protest and to assemble."
Youth activist group Anakbayan, which was part of the lightning protest, called Wednesday for the release of Gabriel Magtibay and Joanne Pagkaliwangan, the two activists arrested by Manila police on Tuesday morning.
"The protest was anti-war in nature. The youth expressed their opposition to the military exercises, which threaten the security of the Philippines amid rising tensions between the US and China," the group said.
It added that "[w]henever there are protests in front of the US Embassy, [police] are willing to hurt and and arrest people who are fighting for their security and livelihoods."
In 2016, a police van ran over several activists after a rally in support of the Duterte administration's so-called independent foreign policy and against US military presence in the Philippines turned violent.
- Latest
- Trending
