Short answer. No — not without a legal ground. The Revised Penal Code punishes any public officer or employee who, without legal ground, prohibits, interrupts, or dissolves a peaceful meeting. If there is no lawful basis, breaking up a peaceful gathering is itself a crime committed by the officer.
What the law says
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
Revised Penal Code, Article 131 — Prohibiting, Interrupting Or Dissolving A Peaceful Meeting. Read the full provision →
The crime is committed by the officer, not the crowd
Article 131 is aimed at the government, not the people gathering. It punishes a public officer or employee who, without legal ground, shall prohibit or interrupt the holding of a peaceful meeting, or shall dissolve the same. Two elements do the work. The offender must be a public officer or employee — a private person who breaks up a gathering is dealt with under other laws. And the meeting must be peaceful. The provision defends the right to assemble by making it a crime for officials to shut down a peaceful meeting when they have no lawful reason to do so.
What 'without legal ground' means
The offense turns on the absence of a legal ground. A meeting does not lose protection simply because officials dislike its message or find it inconvenient. There must be a genuine, lawful basis — for example an actual outbreak of violence, or a real and present danger the officer can point to — before dispersal becomes lawful. If the gathering stays peaceful and the officer acts anyway, the intervention is without legal ground and the article is engaged. The burden is on the officer to justify the interference, not on the participants to prove their meeting deserved to continue.
It also covers association and petition
The same penalty reaches beyond dispersing a crowd. Article 131 also punishes an officer who hinders any person from joining a lawful association or attending its meetings, and one who prohibits or hinders any person from addressing a petition to the authorities for the correction of abuses or redress of grievances. So blocking someone from a union meeting, or stopping people from bringing a complaint to the government, falls within the same provision. The thread running through all three situations is the same: officials may not use their position to smother lawful, peaceful civic activity.
If your meeting was broken up
Keep a clear record of what happened: who ordered the dispersal, what reason was given at the scene, whether the gathering was in fact peaceful, and the names of any witnesses. Photographs, video, and the text of any order or permit are valuable. Whether the officer had a legal ground is the decisive question, and it is judged on the facts as they stood at that moment. This provision states general criminal liability; whether a particular dispersal crosses the line depends on those specifics, which is where careful legal review of the incident matters.