Around 300 Manila policemen will be deployed to Rizal Park today to ensure peace and order in what organizers said will be a peaceful rally against Ferdinand Marcos’ burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani last week.
Senior Supt. Joel Coronel, Manila Police District director, said a “minimum of 200 to 300” policemen would be taken from the Civil Disturbance Management (CDM) unit.
Coronel said they were expecting thousands of protesters to join the demonstration which organizers said was organized “to provide a venue for collective indignation, to show those in power that the fight does not end with the interment of the dictator’s remains.”
“At present, we’re still on full alert, we still have CDM deployment at the Supreme Court, around 100 personnel, until such time this issue of the Marcos burial is resolved,” Coronel said, referring to the pocket rallies being staged by militant groups in the past days.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mayor Joseph Estrada said that while protests were allowed as it was the “constitutional right of all Filipinos to assemble and express their grievances,” the attendees should “not resort to violence or destruction of property.”
Estrada added he had ordered the police to exercise maximum tolerance during the event. However, he urged them to avoid a repeat of the incident at the United States Embassy on Oct. 19 which saw a number of protesters being run over by a policeman driving a police van during a violent dispersal.
According to Coronel, he will be in Rizal Park personally “to exercise command and control over the hundreds of security personnel who will be guarding the site.”
In a letter of invitation, the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacañang urged “Filipinos from all walks of life” to attend the 4 p.m. rally and “rage against the revision of history and the revision of the people’s judgement.”