Reyes and Ruiz were decided at the height of the rallies and demonstrations during the Marcos era following the Ninoy Aquino assassination. And due to such rulings people enjoyed ample freedom in the exercise of this right even under an admittedly more repressive regime. Compared to the present rallies, the rallies at that time were generally more peaceful and orderly. The reasons were obvious. The Mayors then invariably granted the permits, as a rule, cognizant of the settled doctrine that the power to issue permits should be used merely as means to regulate rather than a pretext to preclude the holding of rallies. In fact the SC even observed in the Ruiz case following the Reyes ruling, that the then Mayor of Manila, Ramon Bagatsing, "granted all subsequent applications for such permits, ensuring only that there be no conflict in the scheduling of such assemblies and thereby eliminated the need for the applicant’s having to go to court". At present however, the Mayors apparently found more leeway in their licensing power under the Public Assembly Act (B.P. 880) passed by the Marcos Batasan in 1985. Under said act, permit is required for all rallies in public places except in designated freedom parks, in the campus of a government owned and operated educational institution, and of course in private places which only requires the owner’s permission.While the Act provides that denial of the permit may be justified only upon clear and convincing evidence that the public assembly will create a clear and present danger to public order, safety, convenience, morals or health, it did not expressly place the burden on the licensing authority to submit such proof. Hence, permits may be denied solely on the Mayor’s own appraisal of what public order, peace or safety may require, as what is happening now. Besides, B.P. 880 requires the mayors to designate within six months from its passage the freedom parks where rallies can be held. But up to now, nobody knows for sure where these freedom parks are. There is an area in front of Malacañang long known as "Freedom Park", but who will believe that rallyists can assemble there when they can’t even pass through Mendiola because of CPR?
"Calibrated Preemptive Response" (CPR) is actually the bigger cause of the less peaceful and more disorderly rallies happening now. Its justification seems plausible because it is directed only against street protesters without permits. But this "no permit, no rally" policy sounds good and looks unassailable only if the granting or denial of the rally permits is not susceptible to abuse or arbitrariness that consumes time to redress or remedy. In fact CPR precisely deprives people arbitrarily denied a permit to rally, the right to air their grievance against such arbitrary denial. The very word "preemptive" connotes prior restraint that is repugnant to the exercise of this right. And it becomes more oppressive if the denial is done by the local officials sympathetic to the party against whom the rally is directed. Riskier still is the physical confrontation engendered by the CPR. Frontal clashes between human beings vulnerable to uncontrollable passions and emotions may lead to consequences as dire as lawless violence, insurrection or rebellion. With CPR in place, the Philippines is virtually sitting on a power keg.
The administration should therefore rethink its policy on CPR. B.P. 880 itself says that if it becomes necessary to maintain order, law enforcers must be at least 100 meters away from the assembly. If they assemble despite being justly denied a permit, charges could simply be filed in court and arrest of the leaders thereafter made by virtue of a warrant. The ranks of rallyists are anyway dwindling as to be a threat to National Security. In fact during the Marcos time, "maximum tolerance" was the policy adopted. Physical confrontations in prohibited zones were avoided more by putting up barb wires instead of deploying humans whose response may not be as calibrated as envisioned by the CPR policy makers.