(Eagle News) — The Department of the Interior and Local Government on Tuesday, March 5, slammed as “an exercise in politics in aid of re-election” the Alliance of Concerned Teachers’ appeal of a Court of Appeals decision against a halt order on supposed police profiling.
“The original petition was already dismissed and yet ACT PL (party-list) wishes to beat a dead horse,” Interior spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said in a statement.
According to Malaya, the court’s original decision “proves that the alleged profiling or police crackdown of their group is a figment of their imagination…”
In that decision, the appellate court dismissed ACT’s petition on technicalities, saying the group failed to attach the Integrated Bar of the Philippines membership numbers of their lawyers, among others.
Even then, Malaya said he was confident that the motion for reconsideration would also be dismissed “in the same manner that the original decision was thrashed by the court.”
“We appeal to ACT PL to stop politicizing this issue just to earn votes from the public,” the DILG said.
In making its appeal on Monday, ACT said the original decision of the court was “harsh” and that their case should be heard as it was imbued with public interest.
The Philippine National Police has denied the allegations of profiling against them, saying the police were only doing normal intelligence gathering as part of police work.