Quezon City village officials were caught on video mauling and arresting a homeless man simply because the latter was not wearing a face mask.
News television show 24 Oras reported that the incident happened yesterday afternoon on Panay Ave, in the village of South Triangle. In a CCTV footage, a village enforcer named Joel Laurel approached vendor Michael Rubuia and castigated him for not wearing a facemask. The confrontation quickly escalated, and Laurel hit the vendor several times with a long rattan stick. After Rubuia fell to the ground, several other enforcers dragged him away to a vehicle.
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In a video taken by a netizen, a weeping Rubuia could be heard screaming in Filipino, “I’m not doing anything wrong!”
Rubuia has been turned over to the Quezon City police and is currently detained at the Kamuning Police Station, reports Rappler.
Laurel justified his excessive use of force by saying that Rubuia was being rude to them.
“He’s a big guy, and he tried to move as if he was going to hurt me, so I hit him [with my stick] so he would kneel,” Laurel said. “If you were in our situation, it’s hard to arrest someone who doesn’t want to go with you in the first place.”
Residents of Panay Ave. castigated the village officials for mauling Rubuia. In the video which made the rounds on social media, a female onlooker could be heard saying, “You’re abusing your power. You should not have beaten him up!”
“What you have done is wrong, even if you are working for the government!” another woman was heard telling the enforcers.
Referring to the incident, the Quezon City government said in a statement posted on its Facebook page yesterday that it “shall never condone any acts of violence or violation of human rights, regardless of reason or justification, especially when committed by an official or employee of the City Government or any of the City’s Barangays.”
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“A full-blown investigation is being conducted on this matter, and any person found to have to have acted unlawfully or improperly shall be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” it added.
Some netizens have lambasted public officials for their heavy-handed implementation of the enhanced community quarantine, including the Quezon City cop who shot a retired army officer because the latter allegedly attempted to shoot back.
Aside from that, a Makati cop tried to arrest a Spanish national in his own home without a warrant. Prior to that, a group of Taguig policemen trespassed a condominium and threatened its residents with arrest for allegedly breaking social distancing rules.
