MANILA, Philippines – Retired air force general Romeo Poquiz was arrested upon landing at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) over a warrant of arrest from an inciting to sedition charge filed against him by the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Poquiz’s lawyer Ferdinand Topacio was in the process of posting the P48,000 bail at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court when Rappler spoke to him past noon on Monday, January 5. Poquiz was arrested in NAIA past 8 am on Monday after arriving from a weeks-long family vacation in Thailand.

“We just need his physical presence [in the court], I hope [he can be released within the day],” Topacio told Rappler over the phone.

Poquiz is an outspoken critic of the Marcos administration, and is allied with groups supporting former president Rodrigo Duterte. He is a lead organizer of the September rallies against infrastructure corruption, but ones which were perceived to be politically motivated to elevate the Duterte bloc over Marcos.

The rallies of their group, United People’s Initiative (UPI), was heavily scrutinized by both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the local city government of Quezon City for alleged speeches that incite to sedition. The Quezon City government stopped the third day of the UPI rallies in November for alleged seditious tendencies.

Poquiz’s name was also floated as one of the alleged instigators of a planned coup last November, but he has since clarified that his group spoke to AFP chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. “only to air our legitimate grievances,” and not to urge the military to withdraw its support for Marcos, he told One News on November 19. “I did not,” Poquiz said when asked if he specifically tried to convince Brawner to withdraw military support.

But according to Poquiz’s lawyer, Levito Baligod, the complaint filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) stemmed from a Facebook post, and not the UPI protests, nor the discussion with Brawner.

The Facebook post, Baligod said, read: “Kailangan mag-seryoso ang gobyerno na mag-imbestiga sa anomalya dahil kung hindi, baka isipin ng mga tao na ang mastermind ay nasa Malacañang.” (The government needs to be serious in investigating the anomalies because if not, Filipinos might think that the mastermind is in Malacañang.)

Rebellion and inciting to sedition complaints were filed, but only the latter charge progressed at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 77. The first hearing over the complaint was on October 15, and the warrant was issued way back December 5.

What is inciting to sedition?

Under Article 139 of the Revised Penal Code, sedition is “committed by persons who rise publicly and tumultuously in order to attain by force” actions that threaten government and social stability. “Inciting” under Article 142 is defined as “any person who, without taking any direct part in the crime of sedition, should incite others to the accomplishment of any of the acts which constitute sedition, by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, cartoons, banners, or other representations tending to the same end.”

The Duterte administration also used this legal tool to go after critics. Staunch Duterte critic Antonio Trillanes IV was also charged of the same, and again this time, state prosecutors used the rule of “dangerous tendency.” In the Trillanes case, which he has since been cleared of, state prosecutors said there was dangerous tendency “when the words uttered or published could easily produce disaffection among the people and a state of feeling in them incompatible with a disposition to remain loyal to the government and obedient to the laws.”

Ironically for Poquiz who is allied with pro-Duterte groups, state prosecutors also used the dangerous tendency rule against him.

“The city prosecutor used an obsolete standard in evaluating whether the utterance incited or not [to sedition.] The city prosecutor used the old standard dangerous tendency, but there have been many Supreme Court decisions removing that standard, and we have a new standard called ‘clear and present danger’,” Baligod told Rappler.

Clear and present danger, according to Supreme Court jurisprudence, has a two-way test:

1. Is the evil consequence that the government is trying to prevent extremely serious?
2. Is the imminence of that evil extremely high?

Duterte, during his presidency, cracked down on all kinds of dissent too, which for free speech advocates did not meet the clear and present danger standard.

It’s not the first time that Marcos has used the same Duterte playbook against critics. Even protesters during his inauguration in 2022 were threatened with the same charges, and then again against the progressive bloc of protesters during the November 30 anti-corruption rally last year.

Baligod said the charges were filed in court even though they had filed a motion for reconsideration (MR) before the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is still pending. Generally, prosecutors wait for the resolution of an MR to file charges in court, but the Duterte-time DOJ had often opted not to wait, too.

– Rappler.com