Palace calls for dialogue after Mendiola rally dispersal

Malacañang called yesterday for a dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church to head off possible tension over the Arroyo administration’s policy of dealing with anti-government street rallies after police dispersed a prayer rally last week that included three bishops, some priests and nuns.

Yesterday, administration and police officials justified the dispersal by showing a police video of a man carrying a gun among the protesters during the melee.

Opposition Sen. Jamby Madrigal later admitted on television that the man was her security aide but said the aide was authorized to carry a gun.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said a dialogue over the government’s so-called calibrated preemptive response (CPR) to protest rallies would help clarify issues muddled by rhetoric from both sides.

He declined to comment on Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s warning about a "creeping theocracy" in government from Church officials meddling in the affairs of the State.

"What is important is that we now have a dialogue and understanding with different sectors, particularly with the Church and other religious groups and the government so that the situation will not worsen," he said.

On Monday, evangelist Mike Velarde, leader of the large El Shaddai Catholic charismatic group, criticized last Friday’s rally dispersal and called for "principled cooperation" between the government and the opposition.

Critics charge that the government’s anti-rally policy violated the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly enshrined in the Constitution.

Earlier, Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, one of three bishops at the prayer rally, warned that the Arroyo administration risked antagonizing the Church after police broke up the march with a water cannon.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who headed the CBCP from 1995 to 1999, believes church leaders will soon rethink their position on the political crisis.

"I have not heard of a single bishop who is happy about what happened last Friday," he said.

So far, the Roman Catholic Church’s official position on the political crisis has remained moderate.

Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said no one was to blame for last Friday’s incident because everyone was acting according to their own "deep sense of faith and duty."

Administration and police officials say the dispersal was justified because some of the protesters — including former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and Madrigal of the opposition and leftist Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo — broke away from the prayer march and headed for Malacañang.

They were hosed down when they tried to break through a police blockade guarding the road leading to the Palace.

Yesterday, administration officials proved their point with a police video showing an unidentified man among the protesters’ ranks picking up a pistol that he had apparently dropped during the clash.

Philippine National Police chief Arturo Lomibao presented the video to President Arroyo during yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

"We are just appealing to organizers of future rallies to please follow the law, secure a permit and avoid what happened last Friday," Lomibao said.

Under the law, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said, the armed man’s presence made the rally an illegal assembly. "One component for a protest action to be considered an illegal assembly is the presence of armed individuals," he said.

Metro Manila police chief Vidal Querol said organizers of the Friday rally should explain the man’s presence, pointing out that anti-riot police officers were ordered not to carry firearms to avoid bloodshed.

Mrs. Arroyo has ordered officials to show the video to the public "so that they would know that the dispersal, that what the police did was not unjustified," said Ermita. "The video showed that the use of water cannons was justified."

"A rally is supposed to be peaceful. It is out of place to carry a gun in a so-called religious procession," Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said. "The new footage would help explain what happened. We hope TV stations would carry the new footage and not just the same footage being shown over and over."

Earlier, TV stations had broadcast video taken of rallyists being hit with water cannons by police.

Palace officials maintain that the prayer march was a thinly disguised political rally despite the presence of priests and nuns in the ranks.

"If it was really a prayer rally, then it should have ended in a church," Bunye argued.

In a pastoral letter issued in September, the CBCP discouraged its flock from joining anti-Arroyo rallies following the dismissal of an opposition-initiated impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo over alleged cheating in last year’s elections, among other accusations.

It urged Filipinos to "now move forward and address the more important and urgent problem of grinding poverty of our people, which is caused by excessive politicking."

The allegations that Mrs. Arroyo cheated in last year’s election, which ignited the political crisis, should be pursued through legal and peaceful means, the CBCP said.

The Catholic Church has traditionally played a politically powerful role in this predominantly Catholic nation. It was at the forefront of the "people power" revolts that toppled Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001.

In early July, the end seemed near for Mrs. Arroyo when, one by one, bastions of the establishment deserted: her economic managers, corporate chieftains, civic groups and political allies.

However, Mrs. Arroyo got a reprieve from the CBCP, which refused to join calls for her resignation. — With Aurea Calica, Edu Punay, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Evelyn Macairan, Nestor Etolle