CenterLaw, VERA files and Lyceum law profs assail anti-terrorism law
MANILA, Philippines — Rights lawyers, journalists, internet rights advocates and law professors on Monday trooped to the Supreme Court to join the legal fight against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
Center for International Law (CenterLaw) led the group of petitioners in asking the high court to issue a temporary restraining order to prohibit the government from implementing the law and strike down the entirety of Republic Act 11479 as unconstitutional.
CenterLaw is joined by Foundation for Media Alternatives, Democracy.Net.Ph, VERAFiles Inc. and Lyceum of the Philippines University College of Law in filing the petition.
This is the 27th constitutional challenge filed against the much feared law.
“By penalizing acts regardless of the stage of execution, the Anti-Terrorism Act criminalizes a whole range of actions beginning with expressions of thoughts, to association of persons, and to the very acts resulting in death, injury or damage, including ‘ordinary crimes’ under existing laws,” the group of petitioners said.
Penalizing possession of ‘objects’ or collecting ‘documents’ related to terrorism
Like previously filed petitions, the latest legal challenge attacked the vagueness and overbreadth of the law’s section defining terrorism. CenterLaw said that Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 of the law are “repugnant to the Constitution fr transgressing the fundamental rights.”
Section 6, which penalizes Planning, Training, Preparing and Facilitating the Commission of Terrorism, “infringes on the right to freedom of speech by making mere possession of objects and collecting or making of documents as acts of terrorism,” the petitioners pointed out.
For journalists and rights defenders and advocates, they may gather in materials that “in some way deal with terrorism,” in line with their work. Lawyers and law professors too will encounter such materials.
A person in possession of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital may be punished under this section too, the petitioners said.
“The lack of definition as to what these objects and documents are under Section 6 makes it overly broad that it could include harmless literature or other documentary works which contain dissenting opinions, unpopular opinions, or minority opinions opposed to the opinions of the majority in society,” the plea read.
Duterte’s speech on NPA
The petitioners also urged the Court to take notice of President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent speech where he labelled the New Peoples Army as a terrorist organization because he “finally declared them to be one.”
RELATED: WATCH: Duterte tells communists 'you are terrorists because I declared you to be one'
This, CenterLaw said, “illustrates how the fatally-defective ATA can be recklessly misused to the damnation of the people and to the destruction of hallowed institutions that serve as our country’s safeguards against government abuses.”
The petitioners noted that the speech, on July 8, was not the first time that Duterte made a similar declaration. With the Anti-Terrorism Council composed of alter egos of the president, the speech may be deemed as “presidential policy binding.”
The ATC can authorize law enforcers to detain of a suspected terrorist of up to 24 days, without judicial charge.
“Considering the many problematic provisions of the Anti-Terror Act, all that the President needs to do is to label all his political critics as supporters, sympathizers or members of the NPA, and they could be proscribed as such by the ATC, and prosecuted under any number of permutations or combinations of imagined offenses under the provisions of the fatally-defective law,” the petition read.
“Not too long ago, it was a death warrant to be included in the Order of Battle targeting leftist groups and human rights defenders; in the past four years, it was being part of a drug list, and; now, with the assailed ATA, being tagged as a supporter, sympathizer, aid or abettor of terrorists and terror groups,” the petitioners added.
CenterLaw serves as legal counsel of kin of drug war victims that assailed the police's Oplan Tokhang also before the SC. Nearly three years later, the petition remains pending.
In assailing the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, the petitioners stressed: “Law could, and very well, becomes a twisted tool of twisted politics, under the assailed piece of rushed legislation."
President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Anti-Terrorism Law on July 3 despite opposition from rights groups and civil society groups that it could be used to stifle human rights.
A petition against the law has been filed at the Supreme Court and other groups are preparing pleadings of their own.
Follow this page for updates. Photo courtesy of The STAR/Michael Varcas
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon moves to block access to several websites, including news sites of alternative news orrganizations Bulatlat.com and Pinoyweekly.org.
In his letter to the National Telecommunications Commission, he only says the websites are "affiliated to and are supporting these terrorists and terrorist organizations."
No other basis to back up his allegation was cited in the letter.
Citing the designation of the CPP-NPA-NDF as terrorists, NSA Hermogenes Esperon moves to block access to several sites.
— Kristine Patag (@kristinepatag) June 22, 2022
In Esperon's letter to the NTC, he included news sites @bulatlat and @pinoyweekly; sites of other progressive groups RMP and Save our Schools. @PhilstarNews pic.twitter.com/nAzMITJFsS
The Commission on Human Rights says it "partly welcomes" the Supreme Court decision that some parts of the controversial Anti-terrorism Law are unconstitutional.
CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia says the commission remains hopeful that the remaining contentious provisions of the law will be clarified by the high cour in the full text of the decision.
"At the same time, our commitment remains in guarding against possible human rights violations arising from the implementation of the anti-terror law. We steadfastly remind the government that countering terrorism and protecting human rights are not competing values but are, in fact, mutual and complementary," De Guia says in a statement.
The Supreme Court has deliberated and voted on the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act but the decision will be released "at the soonest time possible."
"However, considering that there were numerous issues resolved in the case, as well as the fact that each Justice had to vote on each issue, there is a need to accurately confirm and tally the vote of each Justice in order to ensure the correct resolution of the Court per issue," SC spokesperson Brian Hosaka says.
The Anti-Terrorism Council designates the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the panel that negotiates for communist rebels during peace talks a terrorist organization.
Previous designation of the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People's Army led to the designation of supposed members of the CPP's Central Committee. Among those designated as terorrists were peace consultants.
Designation gives the Anti-Terrorism Council the authority to investigate and freeze the accounts of designated persons.
The Anti-Terrorism Council has designated 29 people, including alleged members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army, as terrorists in two resolutions.
Designation allows the Anti-Money Laundering Council to freeze the assets of those on the list.
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