Tsk Malaysia… You won’t believe how Philippines’ gomen controls riots

Raise your hands if you’ve ever joined a protest! If you’re Malaysian – and an urbanite, there’s a good chance that you would have, as we’ve had more than our fair share of protests in recent years. Some more got colour theme one.

Now all protests usually have good reason to exist – law-abiding citizens don’t just suddenly take to the streets because they feel like it. However, on the other side of the divide, law enforcement officers usually have a hard time dealing with protesters, especially since they have to keep peace without using violence. And really, it’s harder than you think it is. It gets even worse when they are forced to use drastic measures like, especially knowing that there are many innocent people in the crowd.

Most readers would remember the usage of tear gas and water cannons for crowd control during the Bersih 3.0 rally in 2012, and some were even worried of tasers at the recent Bersih 4.0.  While the good people at PDRM were widely condemned by netizens for this, we here at CILISOS wonder if there is a better way to do things… then something insane happened in the Philippines. 

Philipinos Phillipinos Filipinos were pisssssed during Obama’s visit last week.

Our friends from the Philippines recently hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, and their people were NOT happy about it. Without going into too much detail, here’s why they weren’t too impressed with APEC:

1. APEC seems to only benefits big businesses and may ignore farmers.
2. Because the gomen spent RM 2.6 billion  9.8 billion pesos (RM2,461,961,012.28) just to host this week-long summit.
3. Making life in metro Manila extremely inconvenient with numerous airport and road closures.

And so, a ragtag group of several thousand students, farmers, and indigenous people took to the streets to protest during the summit.

In the past, the Filipino authorities used to send tanks to break up protesters. Of course, with an international summit and so many world leaders present, cannot lah! What would Obama think if he saw that??

So, what did our friends do this time?

They blasted Katy Perry songs!!!

No, really. They did that. After using conventional tactics such as forming barricades and blasting the protesters with water cannons, the Filipino police brought out their secret weapon: Giant speakers. As the protesters were chanting and pushing forward, they started playing Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’! 

Ok, we couldn’t find the best video of the song being played but here’s a news video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ObMgrguzY

They didn’t stop there… Whoever chose the playlist also obviously knew what he was doing, as they even played ‘Sexy B*tch’ by David Guetta, ‘How Deep is your Love’ by Bee Gees, and even ‘Islands in the Stream’ by Dolly Parton. At least DJ Police ensured that everyone from student activists to old farmers had a chance to sing along to songs they liked.

The aim was to turn the protest into a giant rave party drown out the voices of protesters and calm them. (Though if you think about it, the song choice is kind of ironic if the intention was to demoralize them.) And the police even tapped their batons to the beat!! What in the world would possess them to do such a thing? Well… according to Metro Manila Police Spokesperson Chief Inspector Kimberly Gonzales, the music was meant to de-escalate tensions.

“Filipinos in general love music and it has a calming effect for everyone. This goes well with our maximum-tolerance policy during protests.” – Kimberly Gonzales, Police Spokesperson

This move received mixed reactions from the demonstrators, but many were infuriated.

“It’s ridiculous,” leftist member of parliament Carlos Isagani Zarate told AFP as the protesters retreated to soul classic My Girl. (– DailyMail.co.uk)

There were others who managed to see the funny side of it…

“That was a rude and desperate move,” 54-year-old rice farmer Redo Peña told AFP as he broke into a toothless grin. (– AFP)

And guess what…. this isn’t the first time the Filipino police have done this, and in fact they have even used Christmas songs before! Talk about bringing the festive spirit! But the question remains…. effective ke?!

OMG it…. kinda worked?

Music is a huge part of Filipino culture, and if one were to travel around Philippines, you would soon find that pretty much everyone can sing there (may be an exaggeration, but probably not too far off). It has been said that Filipinos learn to sing before they can talk and dance before they can walk, and the Philippines has even produced many famous singers such as:

1. Charice – Her album reached the top 10 on the  US Billboard album chart, and she even starred in Glee!
2. Bruno Mars – 2-time Grammy Award winner, and fabulous dancer.
3. Lea Salonga – You might not know her name, but she was the voice behind Disney’s Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, and Mulan as well! #childhoodmemories
4. The black guy from Black Eyed Peas who is not Will.I.Am Allan Pineda Lindo, or better known as apl.de.ap, member of Black Eyed Peas.
5. Oh, and not to mention….. boxing legend Manny Pacquiao! #BOOMZ

In fact, did you know that the Filipinos were literally the ones who invented the karaoke?? So essentially, this tactic was based on some pretty solid insights. This is a case of the Filipino police applying Sun Tzu’s famous line:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu 

But ok la, to be fair, it may have worked a little bit only… maybe just to stun the protestors for a while la. The riot police eventually had to resort to using water cannons to hose down the crowd.  As the crowd got increasingly rowdy, the batons had to come out as well, and some of the more violent protesters got a good whacking. Evidently #thePowerOfMusic is not quite powerful enough to break up riots just yet!

But hey, every little tactic helps, especially when it comes to minimizing the usage of violence during emotionally heated rallies such as this.

PDRM, start taking notes!

There is certainly something to be learned here for our local authorities, not every time have to use tear gas mah. Just as the Philippines authorities understood that Filipinos love music, what do we know about Malaysians? Well, we know that… Malaysians like to queue for things.

If the authorities can somehow distract them on the actual day of a protest, it would help greatly in reducing the attendance numbers, thus making their jobs much easier. Since we’re so very generous with our ideas, here are 5 we can start with:

1. Give away free food at various locations. Better if famous like Uncle Tetsu Cheesecake.
2. Launch a new iPhone.
3. Open a new H&M x Balmain outlet, or better still, an Ikea!
4. Make McDonalds give away collectibles like Minions or Nanoblocks. Plus, it’s Star Wars season now.
5. Stage a Lee Chong Wei vs Lin Dan match, and even if protesters show up to a rally, it will come to a standstill as everyone’s eyes will be glued to the screens!

If they can pull off all 5 on the day of, say, Bersih 5.0, the rally might not even happen.

Food for thought, PDRM. Thank us later!