UP Diliman students, teachers hold protest vs 1017

Faculty members and students of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City on Tuesday walked out of their classrooms in protest of the Arroyo government's imposition of a state of national emergency. Some 5,000 teachers and students gathered inside the Quezon Hall in the university to denounce Proclamation 1017, declaring the Philippines under a state of national emergency. The university will also be holding a 13-hour alternative class everyday to discuss the impact of the decree, until it is lifted. The UP College of Law Faculty condemns the Proclamation 1017 in strongest terms, saying it is a brazen assault on essential freedoms. “We firmly and unequivocally take the position that Proc. 1017 and General Order 5, and the manner in which they are being applied by the Executive, constitute an unconstitutional infringement on civil liberties," the faculty said in a statement. They said the police and other executive organs use the E.O. 5 to mount a unrelenting campaign against perceived critics of the administration. –GMANews.TV