Rappler.com-July 21
From deploying over 20,000 troops to declaring Commonwealth Avenue a no-rally zone, police employed rare moves to secure the first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday, July 25. The Philippine National Police (PNP) did not resort to such measures in the last two presidencies before Marcos, son of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos whose 20-year regime was known for arresting protesters and stifling dissent. While police denied this is an “overkill,” an activist leader said it showed the Marcos government was “very insecure.” The PNP said it would deploy 21,483 personnel on Monday, July 29, a deployment thrice as big as the first SONA of former president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, which had only 6,720. Former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III had only 10,000 troops deployed to his firs SONA in 2010. PNP head of operations General Valeriano de Leon defended the measures set for Monday. De Leon added the contingent will cover not just the perimeters of the House of Representatives, but the entire Metro Manila. This large sized deployment seems “ironic” for the first post-EDSA president elected by a majority, or 31 million people, said Francisco Magno, political science professor at the De La Salle University and founding director of the La Salle Institute of Governance. “A popular president is not supposed to worry too much about protest since the people are on his side. Perhaps, beyond use of good electoral strategies to win the people’s vote, it is now the time to ensure that the government’s agenda for development becomes inclusive of the different voices in society so that no one is left behind,” Magno told Rappler. Read more at: https://www.rappler.com/nation/cops-to-be-deployed-guard-marcos-jr-sona-2022/
