The United People’s Initiative (UPI) has pledged that no “seditious statements” will be made during its rally on Sunday at the People Power Monument in Quezon City.
According to UPI secretary general, retired Capt. Rey Valeros, the group made this assurance to local officials during their coordination meetings. Valeros shared the commitment in a brief interview with reporters ahead of the scheduled rally.
“We’ve been very clear in our talks that there would be no seditious words… We’re not against the government. What we don’t want right now are the elected officials ruling the government,” he said in Filipino.
And if speakers at the Sunday rally disobey?
“We will stop them because there’s a way to tell the government how deep the problem is right now that isn’t seditious,” Valero said.
UPI is a group composed mainly of retired military and police officials.
According to Valero, the organization invited speakers across the political spectrum and vetted them in the lead-up to the program.
For his part, in an interview with reporters ahead of the UPI rally earlier on Sunday morning, Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP) official Jimmy Bondoc told reporters that he volunteered to help organize the program.
Asked about the agreement to refrain from “seditious statements,” Bondoc said, “We have taken all steps to make sure all speakers know our guidelines.”
“Many of us in our group are lawyers. So, if we detect the key words that constitute incitemen, we will stop them ourselves,” he said.
PDP is a political party chaired by former President Rodrigo Duterte.
