Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) President Dante Guevarra dropped Monday the charges of robbery with threat and intimidation earlier filed by the police against five student leaders of the state university, who allegedly took at least 13 armchairs during a protest action inside their campus last Wednesday, before the Manila Prosecutors' Office.

Citing humanitarian reasons this Lenten season, Guevarra told reporters in a chance interview that he is withdrawing the cases filed against Patrick Michael Canela, Judy Anne Fabito, Abriel Masilungan, Cheysser Soriano, and Ferrin Louise Umagat.

“I arrived at a decision of dropping the case against the five student detainees after a series of consultation with the management and other stakeholders of the university coupled with long hours of personal contemplation," Guevarra told reporters inside the Manila Police District – General Assignment Section.

"I saw clearly that the symptomatic detention of our students is definitely not the answer to our problem. I arrived at a decision of veering away from what may just be considered a symptom, mass actions resulting to the detention of five of our students, and focusing instead on the very ailment that infects the whole academic system in the country—that of the lack of budget provided to the education sector," he added.

The five PUP students were released from their detention cell at past 12 noon Monday after they received their release papers.

Though they feel glad that the cases filed against them were taken back, Masilungan, who is the secretary general of Kabataan-PUP, told the Manila Bulletin that this will not be the last time that the public will see them holding demonstrations on the streets.

"As long as there will be threat of tuition hike in the coming days or years we will still be visible in the eyes of the public. We will not whimper because of what happened but we will fight for what we think is right," he said.

Guevarra arrived at the MPD headquarters at around 10:45 a.m. to personally inform the five detained student leaders that he is taking back the charges the police filed against them.

On the other hand, some 100 members of different militant groups waited patiently outside the MPD headquarters as they wait for the release of the five student leaders while demanding for a higher budget for education.

Vencer Crisostomo, secretary general of Kabataan Party-list, said they held a dialogue with Guevarra and other student leaders over the weekend to come to a consensus on the campaign for higher budget allocation for the university aside from the release of the students.

"We have reviewed President Guevara's statements to the media in which he openly said that the university was being forced to increase tuition because of the measly yearly budget being allocated to PUP. We wanted to know if the students and the PUP administration could somehow unite in their common call for higher budget for the university," he told the Manila Bulletin.