‘Noy hecklers won’t be dealt with heavy hand’

MANILA, Philippines - Hecklers of President Aquino will not be dealt with a heavy hand, but there are laws citizens must follow in the exercise of free speech.

In a press briefing yesterday, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. spoke of student activist Pio Emmanuel Mijares who interrupted Aquino in the middle of his Independence Day speech in Naga City last week.

He said some groups were asking the administration to drop the charges against Mijares before the Naga City Prosecutor’s Office.

Coloma said there were instances of heckling, like at the La Consolacion College in Manila where the President had a town hall meeting for his first 100 days in office, but the student was not dealt with severely.

Based on reports, Mijares was charged with “tumults and other disturbances of public order” or essentially creating “alarm and public scandal.”

Mijares, a 19-year-old psychology student of Ateneo de Naga University, was arrested by members of the Presidential Security Group after shouting: “There is no change in the Aquino administration,” while waving a banner bearing some other demands during Independence Day rites at the Plaza Quince Martires.

The student activist was also charged with “assaulting a person of authority” for resisting arrest and tearing the uniform of arresting Police Officer 1 George Estocado.

Meanwhile, netizens urged President Aquino and Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima to drop the charges against Mijares.

“It is the height of irony, Mr. President, that we the Filipino people have been waiting for more than a year for the arrest of those guilty of graft in the pork barrel scandal, while this young man was very quickly apprehended and detained, and in an event where you were extolling freedom in our country,” read the petition filed through Change.org.

The petition was started by Anna Maria Romero and had over 450 supporters as of yesterday.

Mijares was charged with disturbing public order under Article 153 of the Revised Penal Code and was required to post bail of P8,000. – With Janvic Mateo