5. Navarro vs.

Villegas
31 SCRA 371

FACTS: The petitioner has applied for a permit to conduct an assembly in Plaza Miranda during a
weekday. Respondent Mayor has offered Sunken Gardens as an alternative, guided by a lesson gained
from the events of the past few weeks. The Mayor appraised that a public rally at Plaza Miranda, as
compared to one at the Sunken Gardens as he suggested, poses a clearer and more imminent danger of
public disorders, breaches of the peace, criminal acts, and even bloodshed as an aftermath of such
assemblies, and petitioner has manifested that it has no means of preventing such disorders.
ISSUE: Whether or not respondent mayor violated Article 131 in not granting the petition to hold an
assembly in Plaza Miranda.
HELD: Respondent Mayor possesses reasonable discretion to determine or specify the streets or public
places to be used for the assembly in order to secure convenient use thereof by others and provide
adequate and proper policing to minimize the risks of disorder and maintain public safety and order;
Respondent Mayor has expressly stated his willingness to grant permits for peaceful assemblies at Plaza
Miranda during Saturdays, Sundays and holidays when they would not cause unnecessarily great
disruption of the normal activities of the community and has further offered Sunken Gardens as an
alternative to Plaza Miranda.

Article 131, RPC:
Prohibition, interruption, and dissolution of peaceful meetings. The penalty of prision correccional
in its minimum period shall be imposed upon any public officer or employee who, without legal ground,
shall prohibit or interrupt the holding of a peaceful meeting; or shall dissolve the same.
The same penalty shall be imposed upon any public officer or employee who shall hinder any person
from joining any lawful association or from attending any of its meetings.
The same penalty shall be imposed upon any public officer or employee who shall prohibit or hinder any
person from addressing, either alone or together with others, any petition to the authorities for the
correction of abuses or redress of grievances.