Passive funds do not offer protection against falling prices Copy

This is true to a limited extent.  In falling markets active managers on average tend to offer slightly better downside protection than the respective benchmark indexes, although this is sometimes attributable to the cash balances the managers need to hold for cash flow. In a passive fund, the investor can hold cash directly for cashflow requirements rather than pay an active manager to do this. 

The other factor is that an active fund manager will have avoided holding the obviously weakest shares and will hopefully be holding some of the better shares, both of which will provide a positive tilt in a falling market against the market average.  Generally, the opposite is also true, more active managers tend to lag the markets when markets are rising because they are still holding cash and because any share can outperform and do so excessively.