Militant group condemns arrest of students in UP Visayas rally

A militant group has condemned the arrest of 11 students and two teachers of the University of the Philippines in Visayas who protested the reported billion cuts to state university’s budget and the educational system.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the arrest of 11 protesting students and 2 teachers of UP Visayas in Iloilo yesterday,” Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes said in a statement on Friday.

The police charged arrested protesters with illegal assembly and “disobedience to lawful order.”

READ: Cops disperse rally vs budget cuts to UP Visayas, arrest 11

While the police claimed that the dispersal of the rally was done peacefully, the protesters condemned the dispersal as “harassment” by police.

Reyes said the crackdown was a result of the security measures for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) activities.

“It is a preview of the kind of clampdown the Aquino gov’t will implement in Manila in November,” Reyes said.

World leaders of the 21-member economies of the Apec are expected to attend the World Economic Leader’s Summit in November in Manila. The Philippines is hosting the 2015 Apec.

“We warn the regime: there are no jail cells big enough to contain the thousands of protesters who will march against Apec and imperialist plunder and war. We have organized the Peoples Campaign Against Imperialist Globalization (PCAIG) as the center of people’s resistance to the Apec meet. Provinces and regions from North to South will converge in the capital,” Reyes said.

He said they would organize camp-outs, teach-ins and marches to show the people’s rejection of Apec’s failed neoliberal impositions.

“As it was in 1996, there will be no stopping the protests this November. It’s #PHFightAPEC all the way,” he said. Nestor Corrales, INQUIRER.net/CDG