12/09/2026
𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 | 𝐋𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐞, 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐞
Five paralegals were arrested while protesting the US-led Pax Silica initiative in Bonifacio Global City on September 10. Among them were two members of the University of the Philippines community, including the chief of staff of the UP Office of the Student Regent, who was arrested during the demonstration and another student who was later arrested while accompanying legal counsel at the police station—a blatant disregard of constitutional rights and an exposé of the State’s selective enforcement and weaponization of its laws.
At least 27 other protesters were reportedly injured during the dispersal. The protest was directed at the Luzon Economic Corridor Forum, which included talks about Pax Silica, a US-led economic and strategic initiative that critics say could displace indigenous communities in Capas and place Philippine land and natural resources at the service of foreign-led investments.
The government has no shortage of laws it is willing to enforce. Laws against terrorism and terrorism financing have given the State pervasive powers in the name of national security. Police power is readily invoked when protesters take to the streets.
But with such great powers, there are also protections, limitations on the State’s influence over regulating behavior. Article III, Section 4 of the Philippine Constitution protects freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and the right of people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. These are not privileges granted at the pleasure of whoever happens to be in Malacañang. These are rights codified with the ratification of the 1987 Constitution and the establishment of the Fifth Philippine Republic.
The issue is not that the State has laws. The problem begins when it enforces only the laws that give it power.
𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐢 𝐄𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐱
The welfare of the people is the supreme law.
The maxim has long been used to justify the State's police power: the government may restrict individual conduct when doing so is supposedly necessary for public welfare. But public welfare is loosely defined. If a government project affects communities, land, livelihoods, or natural resources, the people affected by that policy are part of the public whose welfare the government claims to protect. Their objections do not disappear simply because the policy is presented as development, investment, or national security.
This is what was directly challenged by the arrests during the protest at BGC. The protesters were objecting to a policy that they believed could affect Philippine sovereignty, land, and resources. Whether one agrees with their position or not, that disagreement is precisely the kind of political expression that a democratic government should be prepared to hear.
The same issue arises in the State’s approach to dissent. The twin terror laws, the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act, are defended in the name of security, yet their ex*****on has increasingly targeted journalists, human rights defenders, development workers, and activists.
Community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, human rights defender Marielle Domequil, and others have faced trumped up terrorism-related charges, prolonged detention, and other forms of state pressure for work that human rights watchdogs have described as part of a broader criminalization of dissent. Cumpio and Domequil were convicted of terrorism financing in January 2026 and sentenced to 12 to 18 years in prison, while other terrorism-related cases against activists have been dismissed for lack of credible evidence.
Freedom of speech, expression, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government are not privileges that disappear whenever the State invokes national security. When laws meant to protect the public are instead used to intimidate journalists, prosecute organizers, freeze the resources of civil society groups, or silence government critics, the State begins to weaponize its power against them.
𝐍𝐞𝐦𝐨 𝐄𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐦
No one is above the law.
After 43 individuals were injured during the protest in BGC, PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. issued a statement reminding members of militant groups that they are not above the law. The reminder, however, would be better targeted towards State forces themselves.
Protesters are reminded of permits and police orders, while activists are warned about punitive statutes. The words are familiar: the law is the law. But as mentioned by Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza in Biraogo v. Philippine Truth Commission (2010), the Constitution is the basic and paramount law to which all other laws must conform and to which all persons, including the highest officials of the land, must defer.
The right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances is protected under Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution. Batas Pambansa Blg. 880, or the Public Assembly Act of 1985, likewise recognizes that assemblies held in duly established freedom parks do not require a prior permit. The Supreme Court, in Bayan v. Ermita (2006), further held that where a local government has failed to establish a freedom park, public parks and plazas may be treated as such, meaning protesters cannot simply be told that their assembly is illegal for lack of a permit.
A rally is not supposed to be comfortable for those in power. It exists because a grievance has become egregious enough to be brought into public view, and because those who hold authority may otherwise have little reason to listen. The police cannot treat a constitutional right as an inconvenience simply because its invocation disrupts the ordinary course of government.
Republic Act No. 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act recognizes the rights of Indigenous peoples to their ancestral domains and requires free, prior and informed consent before projects affecting those domains may proceed. Yet the proposed Pax Silica industrial hub in New Clark City and Capas is being planned on land claimed as ancestral territory by the Aeta, whose communities have opposed the project and raised concerns over displacement, livelihoods, and access to water. Development cannot mean that the State recognizes ancestral rights on paper while allowing projects to proceed over the objections of the very people whose land and livelihoods are at stake. If the law requires the Aeta’s free, prior and informed consent, then economic development cannot be used as a substitute for that consent.
𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐱 𝐒𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐱
The law is harsh, but it is the law.
The issue extends beyond arrests in BGC. It also involves Philippine foreign policy. The Duterte administration leaned toward China; the Marcos administration has moved closer to the United States. The political debate often gets reduced to choosing which major power the Philippines should stand beside, as if national interest follows whichever flag happens to be flying closer to Malacañang.
Article II, Section 7 of the Constitution says that the State shall pursue an independent foreign policy, with national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interest, and the right to self-determination as its paramount considerations. That means the starting point should be the Philippines, not Washington or Beijing.
Pax Silica puts that question into tangible terms. The initiative is being presented as an economic and technological partnership involving semiconductors, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence. But these are industries with uses that extend into military production, while the proposed industrial hub in New Clark City and Capas would also affect land claimed by the Aeta as ancestral domain.
For the communities living there, this is not simply a matter of attracting investment or strengthening supply chains. The Aeta have opposed projects affecting their ancestral lands and have raised concerns about their livelihoods, water, and displacement.
Article II, Section 22 recognizes the rights of Indigenous cultural communities, while Section 16 directs the State to protect the people’s right to a balanced and healthful ecology. Development does not erase either obligation.
The same goes for economic independence. Article II, Section 19 calls for a self-reliant and independent national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos. That does not mean rejecting foreign investment outright. It does mean, however, asking what Filipinos actually gain from these arrangements, what resources are being committed, and whether the country is building its own capacity or simply becoming another link in a supply chain designed around somebody else’s interests.
The State has the right to pursue national security and economic development. It does not, however, get to define the national interest without scrutiny from the people whose interests it claims to represent. If the welfare of the people is the supreme law, then the people must be engaged in the actual decision-making process. They must not be expected to just readily accept whatever arrangement the government presents as beneficial.
The Constitution is clear about where sovereignty resides: in the people. And all government authority emanates from the people. The law may be harsh. Citizens may have to obey it. But if the State insists that the law must be followed, then it must follow it too.
The law is not only for those who have the power to enforce it.
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