Pride marches celebrate equality so only the tone-deaf will respond to its commemoration with violence and intolerance.

It is an internationally celebrated activity and it is only in lands ruled by bigotry that a Pride march and all the ideas it espouses are repressed – by Talibans, the Ayatollahs, new czars of Russia, and by the Nazis an era ago.

The Philippines should not be in this column.

And we should be aghast at the sight of officers of the law arresting marchers who were exercising their constitutional rights in a manner compliant with pandemic protocols, unable to cite what laws were violated.

For decades and through several administrations, maximum tolerance was the hallmark of police behavior during peaceful assemblies.

It appears that this policy has been conquered by the virus of intolerance.