Cebu City cops, who ask PUJ drivers to remove jeepney placard, slammed
Jeepney operators and drivers of Piston-Cebu held a protest in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City on July 20, asking the government to allow them to return to the roads after the months of lockdown left them without any means of income | Photos via Piston Cebu’s video
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) Cebu is condemning the act of some Cebu City policemen, who asked two jeepney drivers to remove their placards related to the “silent protest” of the drivers and operators of jeepneys this morning, July 20, 2020 along V. Rama St., Guadalupe, Cebu City.
The NUPL said in a statement that the policemen had blatantly violated the people’s right to free speech when they acted on asking the jeepney drivers to remove the placards that were calls for the resumption of jeepney operations, aid for jeepney drivers, mass testing, and the junking of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Read: Cebu jeepney drivers stage ‘silent protest’ for ‘Balik-Pasada’
The actions of the policemen, which were caught by a media entity of Cebu, showed policemen approaching the drivers of the jeepney and asking them to takedown the placards as it was “undesirable”.
“What is undesirable, rather, is such act of the authorities asking for the removal of the placards on patently baseless ground… The exercise of the right to Free Speech cannot be prevented or impeded by a mere belief of law enforcement authorities that the content is “undesirable”,” reads a portion of the NUPL’s statement.
This incident according to NUPL demonstrates the danger of the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).
“We, therefore, call upon the law enforcement authorities to review or re-educate themselves about the Constitution and the Supreme Court rulings interpreting and explaining the Constitutional provisions under the Bill of Rights. We call upon them to respect the Constitutional rights of every person, uphold the Rule of Just Law, and not act according to their whims and caprices,” read another part of the statement./dbs
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