Maximum tolerance, it turns out, is negotiable

On Tuesday afternoon, somewhere near San Marcelino Street, an information technology student cried on live radio because road closures kept her from her examination. “Wala po talagang madaanan,” she told dzRH. She had been hunting for an open route since 1 p.m. Across the metro, an orthopedic doctor stuck in the gridlock gave up and canceled clinic at St. Luke’s Medical Center Global City. Patients went home unseen.

That is the real ledger of a “surprise” rally. The organizers do not pay it, while everybody else does.

The Iglesia Ni Cristo massed at the EDSA People Power Monument on June 30, initially without a permit, in support of Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who faces a plunder complaint over PHP 75 million in campaign donations missing from his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth. Police counted roughly 12,000 people by early afternoon. And the state’s answer to an unannounced shutdown of the country’s busiest corridor? The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority adjusted concrete barriers so vehicles could squeeze through. The interior secretary sat down with INC leaders, secured a southbound lane, and assured the public: “It’s always maximum tolerance.”

Always? Activists charged under Batas Pambansa 880 for a peaceful Labor Day march to the United States embassy, an annual protest held on a holiday, face arraignment in a Manila court on July 14. Their offense, by their own account, was being present at a rally without a permit. The Supreme Court in Bayan v. Ermita held that BP 880 is content-neutral. On paper, yes. On the street, “no permit, no rally” bends for the connected and snaps back on everyone else. A rule that applies only to some assemblies is not a rule. It is a weapon.

Then there is the harder question of what the crowd was for. Tindig Pilipinas asked why any politician should need tens of thousands of defenders against a legal investigation. Fair question. Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, to his credit, did not blink: “Nothing has changed. We will file.” Good. The complaint will stand or fall on the Commission on Elections record, on the SALN, and on why taxes on the donation were settled only in December 2025, some eleven months after the money arrived. Not on how many buses can be filled.

Marcoleta may yet walk out vindicated. His camp insists the PHP 75 million came before he became an official candidate, and the poll body found no election offense. Fine. Make that case before the Sandiganbayan. That is what courts are for.

We have watched crowds deployed against a pending case before. In 2015, INC members occupied EDSA for days to pressure the justice department over a complaint filed by an expelled minister. Government wobbled then. Every wobble teaches the same lesson: numbers can move or bend the law.

And EDSA, of all places. The ground where Filipinos massed to demand accountability from the powerful now hosts a crowd summoned to insulate a senator from a courtroom. The site’s meaning has been turned inside out.

The fixes are unglamorous. Publish uniform Philippine National Police protocols for every rally, permitted or not. Make local governments enforce BP 880 evenly or amend it; its freedom parks remain largely fiction four decades on. And somewhere in Manila, a professor should let a student retake her exam.