Peace and order in our trying times

People have the right to demonstrate peacefully. And the best way to ensure a peaceful demonstration is for the demonstrators to police their own rank. We believe that the police should use maximum tolerance when dealing with demon-strators. But when demonstrators use force, then, the rule of maximum tolerance automatically ceases. Force has to be used against force.

Media has recorded many past demonstrations. And it is very patent that many demonstrators were not only violent, they were planned to be executed violently. One clear case is when rocks were transported in front of Malacañang so that the unruly crowd would have something to throw at the Malacañang guards. The last unruly demonstration was the rally held when President Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her State of the Nation Address.

We would be the very first to object to anything that will prevent the people’s right to air their grievances in public. That would be a direct infringement on what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt classified as the very first of the four freedoms – freedom of expression. But all freedoms have limitations. We have freedom of speech but we have laws governing libel. That is not freedom, that is license.

Most people who join demonstrations do so in the belief that it will be peaceful. The real problem comes when a few provocateurs manage to join said demonstration. This is also true of the police. We have seen cases when the provocation came from some hot-headed policemen. It is very clear that both demonstration and the police have to be on the watch for provocateurs.

We don’t know of any violent demonstration that has been effective. People do not respond positively to violence. If anything, it muddles the issue. No one remembers what the demonstration was all about. All that they recall is that people got killed or hurt.

There is no way of avoiding demonstrations in these trying times. We would even say they can have a positive effect as it allows people to vent their views and frustrations. But we can avoid violent demonstrations that only serves to injure and kill people.

The purpose of a demonstration is to oppose a wrong or advocate what is right. Let it remain that way.