Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Monday dismissed allegations that the city government is out to indiscriminately arrest quarantine violators amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m sorry if they caused so much misunderstanding or apprehension, and they alarmed a lot of people.
But really, the intent is precisely to inform the public. These are your rights. This is the way things should be,” said the mayor, who herself tested positive for COVID-19.
She was referring to her July 13 memorandum listing guidelines to “ensure humane and uniform protocols” in the enforcement of health measures.
Under the memo, a peace officer or a private person may arrest without a warrant a person caught violating health-related ordinances.
Those who have just committed an offense may also be arrested if the officer “has probable cause to believe, based on personal knowledge of facts or circumstances, that the person to be arrested has committed it.”
Alleged violators will not be investigated until they are subjected to booking procedures in the nearest police station and undergo medical and physical examinations in a government or city-run hospital.
They may then be taken to temporary detention facilities instead of jails “to avoid congestion,” the memorandum stated.
Belmonte said she is “willing to change the wording” of her July 13 memorandum, particularly the term "warrantless arrest” after a dialogue with her constituents.
She made the clarification after netizens slammed the guidelines of her memo.
“I am aware that there was a massive Viber group exchange in which the guidelines were demonized. It was alarmist in a sense. The intention was to show that the memorandum was an excuse for the local government to carry out abuse of power and to do indiscriminate arrest and of course for me, that is misinformation,” Belmonte said.
“We exercise maximum tolerance. We exercise the law based on reason and common sense. We are not out to indiscriminately arrest people just because we want to show we are powerful. We are not that kind of government,” she added.
The mayor said the objective of her guidelines was to enforce “standard, lawful and proper guidelines that can be followed by all law enforcers.”
She dismissed “false information” through online chat groups that one could be apprehended for not wearing a face mask inside one’s house or vehicle.