De Lima: Quarantine does not suspend Constitution, human rights

MANILA, Philippines—Senator Leila De Lima on Wednesday implored for “better and clearer” rules of engagement for the police when it comes to alleged violators of the enhanced community quarantine.

In a dispatch from Camp Crame, De Lima questioned the unnecessary use of force that led to the death of Army Corporal Winston Ragos and the physical altercation between the police and  Spanish citizen Javier Parra inside an exclusive village in Makati City.

The senator also said that the lockdown does not mean that basic human rights should be suspended.

“We need to understand that quarantine does not suspend our Constitution and human rights,” said De Lima. “Our police force and our government have the frightening power to destroy human lives, that is why they are given the burden, and the implicit duty, to hold their temper in the face of dissent.”

The ECQ was put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines that has so far infected close to 8,000 individuals.

“We need to establish better clearer rules of engagement for the enforcement of community quarantine rules. Our police officers are expected to make situational decisions that they are not properly trained to do.”

De Lima said that the quarantine is a unique predicament to police officers as this was the first time that it has been imposed in the country.

Offenses such as aggressiveness towards law enforcement, De Lima said, have been treated as threatening criminal offenses.

“Since this is the first time that our police officers are enforcing a quarantine, many of them are having problems calibrating their responses and are treating belligerence as threatening criminal offenses,” said De Lima, who is a former chairperson of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights.