JUST what exactly was the point of the Police Regional Office Central Visayas (PRO 7) in playing the theme song of Voltes V, a popular anime series in the 1970s, on loudspeakers while a group of militants were holding a program right before the police headquarters?
The militants held a rally to commemorate the Edsa People Power Revolution anniversary when, suddenly, the song rang out and overpowered the ongoing speeches of their speakers. PRO 7 Director Debold Sinas said it was their right to play loud music (one of the speakers was mounted right near the gate of the Camp Sergio Osmeña) and it was anyway a holiday.
Sinas should stop kidding the public. He knew very well that there was an ongoing program just in front of the headquarter gates and his agency’s only role in that situation was to keep the peace. As an officer and a gentleman, it is basic courtesy to let the militants be as long as they didn’t cause any trouble.
The interruption irked the militants, seeing it as an affront to their basic right of free speech, and thus a melee ensued. The police liked to emphasize the half-truth about the militants stripping the PRO’s tarpaulin and vandalizing its gates to make the public believe it was the crowd that turned unruly and the sole instigator of trouble. But the other half of the story was the more insulting, rather condescending mockery against a supposedly regular democratic exercise. The camp was suddenly possessed by teen spirit and rock and roll, although the playlist was jockeyed by Sinas himself, who reports said was a Voltes V fan.
It was the interruption of the camp’s loud music that baited the trouble. We could not think of any point why the PRO decided to blast its loudspeakers while it very well knew there was an ongoing program outside its gates. It was clearly an attack of the auditory kind, and malicious at best.
It demonstrates a dangerous mindset that our police officials have—that they have the audacity to obliterate just about any form of irritation coming their way. Sinas does not live in a democracy.