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8 April 2003
When President Gloria Arroyo
delivered her speech during the signing into law of the
anti-money laundering act last March 7, she encouraged
the legislature to help her enact a law on
anti-terrorism.
Yes, the government and the military should do
everything to arrest the perpetrators of these heinous
crimes and punish them according to the parameters set
by our laws.
However, all of the anti-terrorism bills filed in both
houses of congress have one thing in common. All of
these do not define what constitutes a terrorism act or
a terrorist organization. In fact, the definitions are
so broad that it will have hostile effects on our civil
and political rights threatening even our legitimate
right to peaceful assemble. Likewise, the bills give law
enforces unbridled discretion in carrying out
warrantless arrests and search and seizure orders
without court approval while arrested person/s may be
put to jail for 72 hours even without charges being
filed in court (Sec 19, H.B. 4980 of Rep Joseph Durano).
Certainly, these are illegitimate exercise of the
State’s Police power: a willful violation of due process
and protection of the people’s right enshrined in the
Philippine Constitution.
For labor, this would mean severe violation of our trade
union rights particularly the right to strike, e.g., in
Section 4 of H.B. 4980, it was stated that any person or
organization is engaged in terrorist activities when it
is “causing or threatening to cause serious interference
with or serious disruption of an essential service,
facility or system, whether public or private, other
than as a result of lawful advocacy, protest, dissent,
or stoppage of work...” The problem with this provision
is that it is not stipulated on who will determine these
actions. Thus, the capitalist would just declare the
legitimate action as an act of terrorism and the police
would have a field day in arresting the leaders and
members of the union and detained them without charges
being filed in court.
In this regard, we would like to warn our legislators
that enacting an anti-terrorism law is like resurrecting
Martial law all over again when the police and the
military were given the primary task to solve the
country’s problems. Unfortunately, our experience would
tell us that it only worsened rebellion and the people’s
unrest. Now, once the bills are enacted, the same powers
would be given to the police and the military and
certainly, we would only lose all the gains that we have
struggled for and won in the past. Once the bills are
enacted, the legislators are actually giving the police
and military a legitimacy in using the powers of the
state rendering inutile other functions and branches of
the state. Thus, a repeat of the dark years of Martial
law is a big probability when the fundamentals of
democracy have been utterly trampled, e.g., congress
was padlocked in 1972.
In calling for the enactment of an anti-terrorism law,
the president is obviously complying with the
instigation of the US for allied countries to enact laws
similar to its Patriot Act that seeks to end terrorism
by sowing fear and terror among the people.
Certainly, no civil mind would justify and support any
terrorist act in pursuit of a political agenda that
would cause innocent bodies being mutilated and torn
apart while others live as the carnage unfolds right
before their very eyes; and terrorism done for selfish
ends, e.g., for financial and material gains at the
expense of people’s lives would definitely be even more
despicable and loathsome.
However, the bills clearly intend to neutralize
legitimate political dissent by institutionalizing state
terrorism against civilians at its very core since we
have enough laws criminalizing any action towards
committing rebellion and other crimes against the state,
e.g., gun running, money laundering, armed uprising,
etc. that will easily incriminate a person or
organization to any terrorist activity. We don’t need
additional laws. What the government should do is to
address the root cause of terrorism, which is the
absence of food and justice among the people.
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