Arrest of "Cebu 8" nothing to do with protests- PNP

The Philippine National Police clarified the arrest of said “Cebu 8” on Friday inside the University of the Philippines (UP) in Cebu City had nothing to do with the group’s protest against the controversial Anti-Terror Bill.

“[The arrests] had nothing to do with their protest against the antiterrorism bill. It was part of our enforcement of community quarantine guidelines,” Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac, PNP spokesperson, said in a radio interview on Sunday.

Those arrested include three students, four members of progressive groups, and a bystander. The so-called “Cebu 8” were nabbed on Friday morning in the UP-Cebu rally against the Anti-Terrorism bill, which now awaits President Rodrigo Duterte to become a law.

“By arresting people for speaking out, the police have amplified the ideas of the people whose actions they suppressed and have unwittingly become the best publicists for their cause,” Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said in a statement on Sunday.

“It is … hard to find gallantry [or] valor in the acts of the few who arrested hungry drivers demanding work, dispersed students who obeyed health rules while peacefully exercising their right to assemble, jailed a fish vendor for weeks, harassed mothers who brought their kids to a park because their city’s guidelines told them it is now OK to do so, dispatched a team to hunt down a salesman who wrote something covered by free speech,” Recto added.

Also read: Quick facts: What is Anti-Terror Bill?

Banac said the PNP respects people’s rights to freedom of expression. The protesters, however, disregarded the authorities’ plea to follow the ban on mass gathering during the community quarantine.

“We understand that they want to freely express themselves, but we have community quarantine guidelines to follow,” he said.

“They [the protesters] refused to listen to our policemen who were asking them to disperse. So our police personnel were prompted to act … We asked nicely, but we were ignored. The PNP has no other recourse but to enforce the law and make arrests,” Banac added.

Banac also stood firm that the police officers who entered the UP campus in Cebu City to arrest the protesters did not violate the 1982 Soto-Enrile Accord, the agreement which expressly forbids military and police forces to operate inside any UP campus.