“Activists served with search warrants but not found on site, none of them may be arrested, or killed, on sight,” the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) said on Thursday, April 1.

This was pointed out by the PILC in reaction to the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) declaration that it has launched a manhunt against labor activist Marites Santos David after the reported discovery and seizure of firearms and explosives in her house in Calamba, Laguna last March 30.

The PILC said the statement made by the PNP “is erroneous and reckless” and puts David “in danger as she is now treated as a criminal even though no warrant of arrest has been issued against her, nor was she found in the act of committing a crime.”

It stressed: “Only the courts can issue a warrant of arrest upon a proper executive determination of probable cause. None has been issued as per information today” (April 1).

The PILC told the PNP that it is “legally entitled to file a criminal complaint, which then effectively transfers the investigation to the prosecutor.”

“If a case has indeed been filed against Ms. David, she will be given the time and opportunity to file a counter-affidavit during preliminary investigation, at her option,” it said.

“It is the prosecutor who then has the authority to summon the respondent,” and if the prosecutor finds probable cause, only then will “a criminal information be filed in court,” it added.

“By declaring Ms. David as ‘at large’ the PNP is pre-empting the preliminary investigation that is yet to take place,” it also said.

“Ominously, this could be used as setting the stage for a ‘nanlaban’ (fought back) narrative upon accosting Ms David, similar to what the PNP used to justify ‘tokhang’ deaths and the killing of nine activists during the simultaneous raids conducted on March 7, 2021,” it lamented.

The PILC said the continued killings and arrests of activists in recent weeks have been “the fount of rage against the wrongful service of search and arrest warrants.”

“Police propaganda has been aggressively setting the tone that subjects are resisting, when testimonies from witnesses point to planting of evidence, grave violation of constitutional rights, and blatant disregard of police protocols,” PILC said.

“Police and all law enforcement officers must be reminded that when search or arrest warrants are correctly served, no one is supposed to end up dead,” it added.