The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) welcomes the court ruling junking the illegal assembly case filed against six leaders of jeepney drivers’ organizations in Bacolod City in Negros Occidental in relation to a protest held on September 18, 2024.

It will be recalled that jeepney drivers held a protest against the government’s jeepney phaseout scheme through the so-called Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP) in time for the Bacolod transport summit.

To disperse the protest, the Bacolod police, under the leadership of then-Bacolod mayor and now-congressman Albee Benitez and Bacolod City Police Office chief PltCol Joeresty P. Coronica, used water cannons against the protesters, arrested the six transport leaders, and threatened the protesters that their jeepneys will be towed.

Among those arrested, but were not informed of the charges against them at first, were the following transport leaders:
Eric Bendoy, Secretary General, Undoc (United Negros Driver and Operators Center) – Piston (Pagkakaisa ng Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide)
Rodolfo Gardoce Jr, President, Undoc-Piston
Rudy Catedral, President, Bacolod Manibela (Samahang Manibela Mananakay at Nagkaisang Terminal ng Transportasyon)
Lillian Sembrano, President, KNETCO Piston (Kabacod Negros Transport)
Melchor Omagayon, Manibela
Shalemar Saliot, KNETCO

We celebrate the junking of the charges against the six transport leaders in Negros. At the same time, we continue to deplore the filing of the charges in the first place. It is unjust that transport leaders had to face the charges and had to wait for one year before the court junks the baseless case filed against them.

The transport leaders and the jeepney drivers had a valid reason for protesting. The jeepney phaseout scheme posed a threat to their very livelihoods and the Bacolod transport summit was a legitimate target of their protest. The right to freedom of expression and assembly should be upheld in Negros and the entire country.

Again, we condemn the Bacolod authorities’ use of the Public Assembly Act of 1985 (Batas Pambansa 880) to suppress and harass protesters. That law is a repressive measure that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Jr legislated to suppress growing protests over the death of former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. The government should not be suppressing protesters who are simply airing legitimate grievances and demands.