A QUEZON City court has acquitted 21 urban poor protesters who were arrested and subsequently charged for staging a rally to demand food and aid from the local government at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last 2020.

This was after Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) Branch 38 Presiding Judge John Boomsri Sy Rodolfo granted the protesters’ demurrer to evidence, saying “they acted within their rights to seek food and aid.”

“As discussed above, the accused were acting within their rights when they went outside of their respective residences to plea for food. Therefore, the police officers, at the time they confronted the accused and under the circumstances established in this case, cannot compel the latter to obey their directive to go home.”

“In our constitutional system, presupposition [assumption] that the burden of proving the guilt of an accused lies on the prosecution, which must rely on the strength of its own evidence and not on the weakness of the defense. The rule is invariable whatever may be the reputation of the accused, for the law presumes his innocence unless and until the contrary is shown. In dubio pro reo [‘in cases of doubt, then for the accused’]. When moral certainty as to culpability hangs in the balance, acquittal on reasonable doubt inevitably becomes a matter of right,” the 14-page decision read in part.

According to the police, the protesters, all residents of Sitio San Roque, were arrested at a portion of EDSA in Bgy. Bagong Pag-asa on April 1, 2020, for staging a rally without the necessary “permit”.

Videos circulated online showed that the protesters were violently dispersed by lawmen belonging to the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).

Some of them held placards claiming that they have not received any help from the local government while the stricter “enhanced community quarantine” (ECQ) was imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The local government of Quezon City denied these claims, saying there has been “continuous distribution of food packs throughout the city, both from the local government and the barangays, to ensure that affected families are looked after during this crisis period.”

The protesters were charged with violating Republic Act No. 11332 (Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act), violation of Batas Pambansa 880 (Public Assembly Act of 1985), Art. 151 of the Revised Penal Code (Resistance and Disobedience to a Person in Authority or Agents of Such Persons), Section 6 (f) of RA 11469 (Bayanihan to Heal as One Act), and Section 6 (H) of RA 11469.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Hector Lawas