Injured	Killed
13	0

Date: 13 February 2013
Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/294697/news/regions/13-cops-hurt-during-clash-with-protesters-in-cotabato

KIDAPAWAN CITY — Thirteen police personnel from the Cotabato Provincial Police Office were injured in a scuffle with protesters at about 3 a.m., Wednesday, a police official

Sr. Supt. Danny Peralta, CPPO director, said their men were sent to the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) to open the main gate closed by the protesting students and faculty members, and to make sure some 12,000 college students and their professors can enter the school premises for the day.

“But they [cops] were met with so much force and violence by the protesters so they also had to protect themselves,” said Peralta.

Of the 13 injured cops, seven of them were sent to the Kabacan Medical Specialist Center in Kabacan town identified as Ronald Abayasa; Ryan Valdez; Elmer Dizon; Jeff Concepcion; and those identified only in their surnames as Saturnino, Taniala, and Ballescas, all with a rank of a Police Officer 1.

Supt. Leo Ajero, chief of the Kabacan PNP, said most of their men sustained injuries from stones thrown at them by the protesters and wood planks with nail spikes on them.

The Police also arrested four protesters after yielding bladed weapons.

Ajero said they immediately detained the suspects inside their station as they are readying charges against them.

Dr. William dela Torre, one of the co-conveners of the USM Multi-Stakeholders Movement for Truth and Justice, the group that is leading the protest actions that have begun since January 14, cried “foul” and considered the attempt of the authorities to disperse the protesters as “police brutality”.

“What I know was that the request of (USM President) Jesus Antonio G. Derije.
was to open the entrance gate.  But why is that many of the placards and tarpaulins placed there were destroyed.  They also destroyed the tires of some of the tricycles parked near the gate.  That is what we call police brutality,” said Dela Torre.

Ajero, however, denied the allegations there was a dispersal of the protesters and that what they did was a “show of their brutality”.

“That’s not fair.   It’s not true.  That’s what the protesters are saying. But what do we call their act of violence towards us?  Is it not a brutality?   We sent our men there to make it sure the main gate would be opened to everyone. But we were met with violent opposition. The tarpaulins and the placards were destroyed because these were placed on the gate,” said Ajero.  

He said they have to immediately order the pullout of their men in the area to prevent further violence and worst, bloodshed.

After the police left, dela Torre said, the protesters were able to gain control of the USM’s entrance gate.

The protesters – led by Dr. Alimen Sencil, USM’s deputy director for Community Extension Services; Dr. William dela Torre of the College of Fisheries; and Dr. Khaironesa Pahm – want Derije to step down from his post due to alleged graft and corrupt practices.

They said they will continue their protest until Derije is kicked out from the school.

Sencil said the USM president no longer has “moral ascendancy” to lead the university because of several graft complaints.

But Derije, whose reappointment order from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) was handed to him on January 4, is holding on to his position.

Derije, based on CHED’s order, will stay until 2016.

He vehemently denied the graft charges, saying he only inherited the problems during the past administration but is now fixing them. — Malu Cadelina Manar /LBG, GMA News