strike three! (well, maybe a 2 1/2...)

Supreme Court: Arrests, raid under 1017 were illegal


 


First posted 04:04pm (Mla time) May 03, 2006


By Tetch Torres


INQ7.net


 


 


THE Supreme Court has upheld President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's power to declare a state of emergency but ruled that arrests and a police raid made under Proclamation 1017, her instrument for such a declaration in February, were illegal.


Voting 11-3, the Supreme Court said the Constitution empowered the President to declare a state of national emergency but also said the arrest of university professor and Inquirer columnist Randy David and Akbayan national chairman Rolando Llamas and the raid at the office of The Daily Tribune virtue of Proclamation 1017 violated the law.


 


Those who dissented were Associate Justices Renato Corona, Presbitero Velasco, and Dante Tinga who wanted the high tribunal to include of a definition on the extent of the President’s emergency powers.


 


The decision was penned by Associate Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez.


 


Police arrested David and Llamas while they were trying to negotiate for allowing a peaceful demonstration to mark the anniversary of the EDSA People Power uprising last February 24. Police also raided the Daily Tribune office and used materials gathered there to file rebellion charges against the editor-in-chief, Ninez Cacho-Olivarez, and columnists Herman Tiu-Laurel and Ike Señeres.


 


Seven petitions had been filed with the Supreme Court to declare Proclamation 1017 unconstitutional.


 


The petitioners include Randy David, Alternative Law Groups, Ninez Cacho-Olivares and Tribune Publishing co., former senator Loren Legarda, Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), Representative Francis Joseph Escudero and 22 other oppositionist congressmen, and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP).


 


Respondents include Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr., Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno, Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Generoso Senga, and Philippine National Police Chief Arturo Lomibao.

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