On “interfaith rally”: Checkpoints : Police not authorized to compel occupants to step out of vehicle

  Michael Bacol, “Motorela”, Oil on Canvas, 122 x 122 cms., 2003. Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art. Rightclicked and downloaded with express permission (thanks much!) from the webmaster at www.kulay-diwa.com                

      A couple of days ago, the Department of Education warned that schoolteachers who joined  the interfaith rally in Makati would be  disciplined. The Department of Education should however be advised that under civil service rules, government employees are entitled to leave credits that they can avail of in case of sickness, vacation, and for any other reason. Government employees who do not avail of their leave credits can monetize them after the end of the year. As long as  a government employee does not go on AWOL (absence without leave) and files the corresponding  form for leave for that day (today), he/she cannot be proceeded against for being absent today to join the interfaith rally. The Department of Education therefore has no authority to proceed against any schoolteacher who fills up the necessary forms for leave for today and who joins the rally.  (In fact, the warning itself, if worded as stated in the news item, appears to be unconstitutional.)              

             Yesterday, convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada said he would join the rally; this, coming in the heels of several PR media coverage of him asking for the resignation of Gloria and offering himself as a successor should Gloria be ousted, since, as he said, he never finished his term. The rally being an open assembly, anyone and everyone is welcome. These movements however have been successful in attracting many and new participants precisely because organizers studiously avoided giving leading roles to politicians and candidate-wannabes although some of them have managed to insert themselves in the program. Estrada in his continuing bid to be relevant will no doubt try to attract media attention to himself during the interfaith rally. Showing  Estrada there at the head of the march and occupying a prominent place on stage would make the entire anti-corruption anti-plunder movement a farce – nothing more than a power struggle between and among plunderers.             

         Today, the  news media reported that several checkpoints have been set up at the NLEX to search delegations coming from the provinces and in fact this morning, a delegation of students from Pampanga was stopped on the highway.

       (I think the participants are  usually identified by the streamers and rally paraphernalia they are carrying.)        

        While checkpoints have been ruled upon as legal (Valmonte vs. De Villa with three dissenting justices), the Supreme  Court set down guidelines to make such warrantless searches legal, primary of which is that the search should only be visual (no contact) and law enforcement authorities are not allowed to force passengers to get off or get out of the vehicle. Here are those guidelines and standards (from Valmonte vs. De Villa, second ruling, on MR, 1990):      

       1.Compartments of the vehicle and the vehicle itself are not searched (absent a real probable cause) but merely visually searched with the use of a flashlight, for instance.     

        2.Occupants cannot be bodily searched.    

       3.Occupants cannot be compelled to get off or get out of the vehicle.

        4.The driver and occupants cannot be compelled to open  any compartments or luggage or bags in the absence of a real probable cause (e.g., the smell of marijuana, or drops of blood, or unruly behaviour, or objects that on plain view look like deadly weapons, etc.) 

            The conduct of the checkpoints right now  — occupants being asked to get off their vehicles and being stopped from proceeding without probable cause — violate these guidelines and make those searches without probable cause , illegal.