The Philippine government is preventing anti-corruption rallies to be held where the Ferdinand Marcos Sr. dictatorship fell 40 years ago.
If it were up to petty government officials and the police, anti-corruption activists should not be allowed to hold rallies at the site where millions of Filipinos ousted the Marcos family from power in 1986.
An official from the Quezon City government as well as the Philippine National Police said on Friday that rallies at the EDSA Shrine, site of the 1986 People Power uprising that ended the Marcos dictatorship, are prohibited.
Tens of thousands are expected to gather at the site next Wednesday, February 25, this time to denounce the widespread corruption rocking the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government since last year.
QC Department of Public Order and Safety chief Elmo San Diego announced the local government has decided to ban rallies at the historic site and instead offered the one-kilometer stretch of White Plains Avenue as an alternative venue.“If you wish the government to fall, why should be give you a permit? If the direction of your rally is short of being seditious, definitely, we will not give you a permit,” San Diego explained.
The QCPD (Quezon City Police District) assessment is that…it is not right and is dangerous if there are groups that have records and whose members have been in jail…Definitely we will not give them a permit,” he said.
San Diego did not name the group or the persons he was alluding to.
‘Like his father’s regime’
“Marcosian,” activists said of the ban, reminiscent of the days when they were holding rallies against the current president’s father.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) said authorities should not be allowed to dictate what people can express or protest on Wednesday and vowed to challenge the ban.
“Forty years after the ouster of the dictatorship, Marcosian policies are still being used to intimidate and silence critics and dissenters,” the group said.
“Enforcing a ‘no permit, no rally’ policy is an insult to Filipinos who stood up against the Marcos Sr. dictatorship and fought for our democratic rights,” Bayan added.
Bayan will lead various other organizations in denouncing corruption and impunity under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government on the uprising’s anniversary.
From Marcos Sr. to Mayor Joy
It was the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who decreed Batas Pambansa Blg. 880 (Public Assembly Act of 1985) at the end of his regime, ordering protesters to seek permits from local government units at least five days before the event.
It was huge rallies along EDSA and in many other parts of the country that ended the dictatorship and put in place new regimes that promised democracy and human rights.
As a department head, it is beyond San Diego’s authority to deny rally permit applications but Quezon City Mayor Maria Josefina Tanya Alimurung’s. She is the daughter of anti-Marcos journalists Betty Go and Feliciano Belmonte Jr.
The mayor “ministerially” approves the application within two days of receipt of application.
The rally may still be held without a permit as long as it remains peaceful under the law’s “maximum tolerance” provision.
Rally to go on
Bayan however said it is not for the government to approve the slogans, banners, and placards that protesters shall carry at EDSA.
“Censoring slogans is anathema to the spirit of People Power,” the group said, recalling that the two uprisings that centered at the EDSA Shrine deposed Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and Joseph Estrada in 1986 and 2001, respectively.
Bayan earlier announced it will hold its rally at the EDSA Shrine – built in celebration of the 1986 uprising – this time to denounce corruption and impunity under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government.
“Calling for Marcos’s resignation or ouster is not unconstitutional. The people have the right to demand the removal of officials who commit crimes with impunity,” Bayan said.
The Marcos Sr. dictatorship would have remained in power if protesters had made only demands that would not have antagonized the authorities, the group pointed out.
Bayan said it will assert its rights and challenge the “unjust” restrictions by authorities.
“The government and the police must allow this peaceful assembly to proceed without oppressive conditions,” Bayan said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
