Police ask to enter Barangay UP Campus for ‘immersion program’

The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) sent a letter on Thursday, March 18, to officials of Barangay UP Campus requesting to allow them to enter the area to conduct a 10-day immersion.

In a tweet, the Philippine Collegian, the official student publication of the University of the Philippines Diliman, posted a photo of the QCPD letter to chairman Zenaida Lectura of Barangay UP Campus.

LOOK: The Quezon City Police District asks Punong Barangay Zenaida P. Lectura to allow seven cops to conduct their “community immersion program” in Brgy. UP Campus from March 23 to April 2. pic.twitter.com/TNGpLe3oQJ
— Philippine Collegian (@phkule) March 18, 2021

In the letter, QCPD said the program was part of the ongoing training for the Police and Community Affairs Development course of the National Capital Region Police Office Class of 2021.

The letter added that Barangay UP Campus was unanimously selected by 7 participants from the Eastern Police District and Quezon City Police District.

In a viber message, the QCPD PIO said that it intended to conduct the program in the barangay and not on the university campus itself. A large part of the barangay is actually occupied by the Diliman campus of UP.

Philippine National Police spokesperson Brigadier General Ildebrandi Usana, meanwhile, said in a text message that the immersion programs of the PNP aim to strengthen the connection between the police and the community.

“It aims to strengthen the relationship between police and community relations with some community-based activities… It is a community-friendly activity of the students,” Usana said.

In January 2021, the Department of National Defense unilaterally abrogated the UP-DND accord that prohibited the presence of the police and the military in UP campuses. The accord was signed to protect students and faculty members from human rights violations best exemplified during the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

In an online exchange with Rappler, Froilan Cariaga, president of the UP Diliman University Student Council, lambasted QCPD’s request and said he was confident the request would be denied.

“The UP Diliman University Student Council confidently claims that human rights advocates in the administration and the barangay will permit no such thing to happen,” Cariaga said.

“Should the PNP enter our premises without permission, as they historically have, they will be met with the united rage of our communities,” he added. – Rappler.com