MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo said she is hoping that the full decision of the Supreme Court on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 will resolve the concerns of the petitioners against the heavily assailed law feared to have a lasting impact on civil liberties in the Philippines.
“We are hopeful that the rest of these concerns will be substantially resolved in the full decision,” Robredo, who is running for president, said in a statement Thursday after the Supreme Court Public Information Office revealed that the high court struck down only two provisions of the law.
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She added that any anti-terrorism legislation should address the root causes of terrorism and should not be used as a pretext to stifle freedom of expression or legitimate dissent.
The Supreme Court, voting 12-3, voided parts of Section 4 which provides what kinds of “advocacy, protest, dissent, stoppage of work, industrial or mass action, and other similar exercises of civil and political rights” that cannot be considered terrorism.
It also nullified in a 9-6 vote the provision which lets the Anti-Terrorism Council to adopt requests for designation of people as terrorists by other jurisdictions or supranational jurisdictions.
The rest of the law remained intact, much to the dismay of petitioners who wanted the entire measure declared unconstitutional.
It is not clear how the SC’s full decision on the anti-terrorism law will further resolve the petitioners’ concerns, given that the high court had already ruled that most of it is constitutional.
Robredo had previously voiced her concerns over the law, which she said was “ill-timed” when it was passed by the House of Representatives in June 2020 and the country was still reeling from the lengthy lockdown imposed to curb coronavirus infections.
“Does this Terror Bill really seek to stop terrorism? Or is this just another ploy that intends to give the State the power to tag anyone it wishes as a terrorist?” she said of the legislation then.
She raised that the law can be used to “suppress our right to express ourselves freely” as it expands the scope of who can be called a terrorist, while limiting the checks and balances against wrongful arrests.
“This power can be very dangerous, especially in the wrong hands—in the hands of people who have no qualms about using disinformation, inventing evidence, or finding the smallest of pretexts to silence its critics,” she said.