Lack of quorum snags terror bill

Lack of quorum derailed last night the approval by the House of Representatives of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005.

Among the controversial provisions of the draft law are those on arrest without a court warrant and detention of suspects for not more than 15 days without charges.

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., on whom Malacanang has pinned hopes for the approval of the measure before Congress goes on its Christmas recess today, wanted the bill passed last night.

As of 9 p.m., he was on the floor waiting for a sufficient number of his colleagues to show up for the resumption of the session, which the presiding officer, Deputy Speaker Gerry Salapuddin, suspended about 20 minutes earlier when Negros Oriental Rep. Jacinto Paras questioned the quorum.

When no sufficient warm bodies showed up, Salapuddin was forced to adjourn the session until 4 p.m. today.

Paras, a member of the minority, said when the House is discussing important measures like the anti-terrorism bill, there should be enough members in the session hall listening to the discussions.

Deputy Minority Leader Rolex Suplico appealed to his colleagues to allow exhaustive plenary debates on the anti-terrorism measure.

He said the bill has far-reaching implications on the people’s civil rights and on basic freedoms, including free speech and expression.

"Those in power could use this bill to stifle dissent and terrorize the political opposition and other critics," he said.

Before last night’s session started, Representatives Crispin Beltran of the party-list group Anakpawis and Liza Maza of Gabriela questioned why the House is giving priority to the proposed anti-terrorism law when there are other measures that it should give priority to.

In particular, they cited the proposal for a P125-across-the-board daily wage increase, which majority of House members had endorsed and which had not moved beyond the initial plenary consideration stage.

They said as far as they and millions of wage earners are concerned, the wage measure is more important than the anti-terrorism bill.

Maza said the majority bloc has marching orders from President Arroyo to railroad the approval of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005.

"This is a shameless move by President Arroyo to railroad the anti-terror bill tonight in exchange for the full support of the United States for her regime," she said.

She added that the recent visit here of US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte was related to the approval of the bill, which is patterned after the Patriot Act of the US.

The proposed law defines terrorism as "premeditated, threatened or actual use of violence, force, or by any other means of destruction perpetrated against person/s, property/ies, or the environment, with the intention of creating or sowing a state of danger, panic, fear, or chaos to the general public, group of persons or partisan person, or of coercing or intimidating the government to do or abstain from doing an act."

Among the acts of terrorism enumerated in the bill are threatening or causing death or serious bodily harm to a person or persons, threatening or causing serious risk to health or safety of the public or any segment of the public, taking of threatening to kidnap or deprive any person of his/her liberty, assassinating or threatening to assassinate, or kidnapping or threatening to kidnap the president, vice president, Senate president, Speaker of the House, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or killing or attacking diplomatic agents.

Those found guilty of acts of terrorism would face life imprisonment or death, and a fine of P10 million.

Persons who have personal knowledge of such acts but fail to report them to the police could be imprisonment for six years to 12 years, and fined from P50,000 to P100,000.