Batas Pambansa 880

Obviously, Malacanang and Arroyo's thugs haven't read BP 880:

IT SHOULD be compulsory for all policemen and public officials, from the President down, to read the Constitution and understand what it means and, in particular cases like the present controversy over rallies, the law that governs that activity. Some police officers have admitted to the Commission on Human Rights that they have not read Batas Pambansa 880, but it appears that top police officials, the justice secretary, and even the President herself have not read it. For if they did, the hosing down of the peaceful ralliers last Friday the 14th would not have happened.

Section 10, paragraph [c] of the law prohibits the use of water cannons to disperse a peaceful assembly. “Tear gas, smoke grenades, water cannons, or any similar anti-riot device shall not be used unless the public assembly is attended by actual violence or serious threats of violence, or deliberate destruction of property.” The rally was very peaceful -- in fact, leaders of the assembly and police officers were negotiating -- when the two firemen opened up with their water cannon.

BP 880, which the police are citing to justify the dispersal of public rallies was, ironically, issued by the Ferdinand Marcos regime in 1985 to guarantee the right of the people to attend rallies as provided by the Bill of Rights. Imagine that, it was the dictator Marcos, the sponsor of martial law, who passed a law not to curtail public rallies. (But it is the regime of Ate Glue that is repressing the rights of the people guaranteed by the Constitution.)

The police are to be on the scene not to prevent the rally but to protect the ralliers. “It is the duty of the licensing authorities, city or municipality, to provide proper police protection to those exercising their rights to peaceable assembly and freedom of speech.” Remember this, policemen, you are sent there not to protect the President but to protect the people from interference. “Sec. 9. Non-interference by law enforcement authorities -- Law enforcement agencies shall not interfere with the holding of a public assembly.”

“Sec. 10. Police assistance when required-It shall be imperative for law enforcement agencies, when their assistance is requested by the leaders or organizers, to perform their duties always mindful that their responsibility to provide proper protection to those exercising their right to peaceably assemble and the freedom of expression is primordial.” In other words, it is the leaders of the rally who should ask for a police contingent to protect them, not to prevent their rally or to disperse them.

The police say the ralliers were being banned from Mendiola Street. But BP 880 guarantees that the public assembly can be held in any “public place” and that “includes any highway, boulevard, avenue, road, street, bridge or other thoroughfare, park, plaza, square, and/or any open space of public ownership where the public are allowed access.” Mendiola is one such street.

READ. THE. WHOLE. THING.

Lalo na yung mga implementors ng BP 880, para hindi nyo abusuhin ang mga anti-Arroyo marchers.