Ugly spectacle of unconstitutional assault on KOJC continues

DESPITE the issuance of a writ of amparo against the Philippine National Police (PNP) by the Regional Trail Court, Branch 15, Davao City — ordering it to "immediately cease and desist from committing any act or omission that threatens the life, liberty, or security as well as the properties of the petitioners " and to "remove all forms of barricades, barriers or blockades that bars the access to and from the subject compound and hinder the petitioners' religious, academic and proprietary rights of the petitioners and the pursuit thereof of their officers and members within and the surrounding premises" — the PNP, using legal jargon and twisted logic foisted by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), incredibly, brazenly and unlawfully defied the court's order by remaining in the premises and continued the siege of the KOJC premises, even increasing the number of policemen from about a thousand to 3,000, uprooted from the different PNP regions in Mindanao.

The justification for the continued stay of the police contingent in the KOJC premises by the PNP, DILG and DoJ is that the issued writ of amparo by the Davao court cannot supersede or prevail over the warrant of arrest issued by another court. They argue that since the writ of amparo does not direct the police force to leave the KOJC compound, they can, therefore, continue their search for the suspect Pastor Apollo Quiboloy in the huge 30-hectare complex of the religious organization as part of the enforcement of the arrest warrant.