BY AARON RECUENCO
The Philippine National Police (PNP) advised the administration of the University of the Philippines (UP) to ensure that all those who would hold the protest action in its Diliman Campus in Quezon City would observe minimum health safety protocols such as wearing of face mask and observing physical distancing.
PNP chief Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa said all the police could do is to wait for any request for assistance to augment the UP Police force in the implementation of the quarantine rules during the protest action for Duterte’s SONA on Monday afternoon.
Based on the PNP security plan for the 5th State of the Nation Address of President Duterte, all protesters are banned from holding rallies on Commonwealth Avenue which is the traditional protest ground every SONA.
Instead, protesters are advised to go to UP Diliman Campus.
UP campuses are off-limits to government law enforcers unless the school administration would request for such.
“Under the UP Charter, the police can only come if they will request for such that’s why I said during the briefing that we will leave it up to the chartered institution like UP to police their ranks because they have their own security force. So we leave it to them,” said Gamboa. (Aaron Recuenco)
