Lino Brocka arrested in 1995 for protest assembly false

The director, Lino Brocka, who is a persistent critic of the Marcos Government, was charged this week with organizing an illegal assembly and is being held without bail. A well-known stage director, Behn Cervantes, is being held on the same charge.

Both film-makers are reported to have been charged, together with others, as leaders of an illegal assembly, under Presidential Decree 1834, for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment and for which bail is not permitted.

Filmmaker Lino Brocka together with other activists who attended a protest rally and jeepney strike were all detained under a Preventive Detention Action issued by then President Marcos on January 28, 1985.

Brocka · used "Bayan Ko" not only as the title song of the film but also in a scene that alludes · to the protest march that took place after the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.. The · song became a symbol of protest and resistance against the Marcos regime even before ... Marilou Diaz-Abaya) or taught in universities (e.g., Ishmael Bernal). The exception · was Lino Brocka, who in 1988 made Macho Dancer, which was considered the only

On January 28, 1985, Brocka and Behn Cervantes were arrested during a nationwide jeepney strike. They were charged for organizing an illegal assembly and denied bail, although they both stated that they were attending in sympathy with the drivers. They were released after 16 days.

Despite the success and stature ... agrarian reform and supported street strikers. He denounced censorship and resisted the Marcos dictatorship, suffering arrest for his views....

Enrile case, which, for La Viña, ... rally in 1985 while Ferdinand Marcos was still president.[33] Brocka, Cervantes, and Severino were subsequently charged with illegal assembly and inciting to sedition....

It further noted—“. . . the tenacious invocation of a spurious and inoperational PDA and the sham and hasty preliminary investigation were clear signals that the prosecutors intended to keep Brocka, et al. in detention until the second offense of “Inciting to Sedition” could be facilitated and justified without need of issuing a warrant of arrest anew.”

While the court agreed with the Solicitor General’s Manifestation that Brocka, et al. should have filed a motion to quash the information, it noted that such course of action would have been a futile move, considering the invocation of a spurious and inoperational PDA and the sham and hasty preliminary investigation which were both signals that the prosecutors intended to keep Brocka, et al in detention until the second offense could be facilitated and justified without need of issuing a warrant of arrest anew.