No serious punishment for PNoy hecklers

President Benigno S. Aquino III delivers his speech during the launching of the Bohol Fabrication Laboratory (FABLAB) Shared Service Facility Project and the 1st FABLAB Asian Network Boot Camp and Conference at the Bohol Island State University (BISU) in Tagbilaran City, Bohol on Friday (May 02). (Photo by Benhur Arcayan/ Malacañang Photo Bureau)

MANILA — Though the law provides punishment against those who will be abusing the exercise of free speech, President Aquino will not be seriously punishing his hecklers.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma said that there were already several instances of heckling but they are not dealing with the students seriously.

Coloma also mentioned the heckling during President Aquino’s Independence Day speech in Naga City where he was interrupted by Pio Emmanuel Mijares, a student activist.

Before he was arrested by the Presidential Security Group during the event, Mijares was heard shouting: “There is no change in the Aquino administration,” while waving a banner.

He was later on, charged with “tumults and other disturbances of public order” or essentially creating “alarm and public scandal.”

Several groups are already asking the government to drop the charges filed against the student activist.

“It is the height of irony, Mr. President, that we the Filipino people have been waiting for more than a year for the arrest of those guilty of graft in the pork barrel scandal, while this young man was very quickly apprehended and detained, and in an event where you were extolling freedom in our country,” read the petition filed through Change.org.

With reports from Philippine Star