EVERY argument concerning the anti-tambay drive of the Philippine National Police (PNP) rests implicitly on the basis that the 1987 Philippine Constitution provides about the human rights of an individual.
What is the basis of such campaign? Is there a violation?
The anti-tambay drive aims to prevent crimes and to make streets safer. This is associated with vagrancy, a way of life in which a person moves from place to place because he or she does not have a permanent home or job. There is also a tendency that he or she has to ask for or steal things to live. The person is called a vagrant.
Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) provides the definition (or classification) of vagrants:
(1) any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling;
(2) any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or trampling or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of support;
(3) any idle or dissolute person who ledges in houses of ill fames; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually associate with prostitutes;
(4) any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of the RPC, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without lawful or justifiable purpose; and
(5) prostitutes
Based on this provision, the law punishes a person because he or she belongs to a certain class. It also treats negatively those who are viewed to be of socially disreputable habit. In other words, the person or vagrant committed a crime because of his status, condition, mode of life or reputation. Not basically based on his acts committed.
Thus, to put an end to this constitutional issue, we have Republic Act 10158 or the Act Decriminalizing Vagrancy, amending Article 202 of the RPC. This means the national law against vagrancy has been repealed. This also means there is no basis for the arrest of mere tambays.
As I have discussed in my previous column, there are factors or situations that should be considered in arresting a person, especially without a warrant of arrest. Once the person has committed or just committed a crime, or escaped from a penal establishment, he should be arrested even without a warrant of arrest.
We don’t neglect the fact that the objectives of the anti-tambay drive are highly recognized because these are for the welfare of the people. However, the police should set clear guidelines and disseminate the information regarding this matter.
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(Atty. Ayin Dream D. Aplasca practices her profession in Iloilo City. She may be reached thru ayindream.aplasca@gmail.com/PN)
