Petitioners file appeal vs anti-terror law before SC

MANILA, Philippines — Twenty-five of the 37 petitioners against the Anti-Terrorism Act yesterday filed their motion for reconsideration before the Supreme Court and reiterated their appeal to declare the law as unconstitutional.

The petitioners filed a 71-page joint motion for partial reconsideration and prayed that the SC declare as unconstitutional Republic Act 1479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

In their appeal, the petitioners asked the high court to reconsider its decision in the third paragraph of Section 10, stating that it is unconstitutional for being vague, overbroad and for failing to meet the strict scrutiny test.

In Section 10, which covers recruitment to and membership in a terrorist organization, the court declared that the phrase “organized for the purpose of engaging in terrorism” is not constitutional.

The petitioners said the third instance in Section 10 should be read in “pari materia,” which translates to “on the same subject matter,” with Section 4 (terrorism), believing only with such reading would the standards and guidelines may be made apparent.

“The petitioners submit that much of this controlling view on Section 10 as found in the Opinion is inconsistent with the ruling as enunciated in the Decision,” they added.

As for Section 25 (designation of terrorist Individuals, groups of persons, organizations or associations), the petitioners focused on the third mode of designation.

“This ruling is a marked departure from the premises of the prevailing ruling, where the 35 petitions were given due course as ‘permissible facial challenges’ in relation to the provisions of the ATA, which involve and raise chilling effects on freedom of expression and its cognate rights in the context of actual and not mere hypothetical facts,” they said.

“Concrete facts and abundant experience show that the practice of red-tagging has in many instances preceded the extrajudicial killings of activists and human rights defenders,” they added.

The petitioners also cited developments showing alleged red-tagging, where one of its recent victims was a petitioner in the case.

Petitioner Chad Errol Booc was among those reportedly killed by the military last Feb. 24, during an alleged encounter with the New People’s Army in Davao de Oro.

“Domestic designation should be subjected to the crucible of standard scrutiny not because of the ‘nomenclature’ of rights being invoked by petitioners, but because the efficacy of such rights, which are textually guaranteed in the Constitution, is being diminished. The government bears a high burden to justify intrusions on such rights that have been accorded an ‘elevated status,’” the petitioners said.

Section 29 gives the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) the exclusive judicial power to issue warrants of arrest.

The written authorization issued by the ATC partakes of a warrant of arrest, in which it has no authority since only judges can issue warrants of arrest, according to the petitioners.

“An executive warrant of arrest is void ab initio, a usurpation which has no constitutional pedigree,” they said.

They also pointed out that Section 29 destroys two safeguards in the Constitution to guarantee the protection against unreasonable arrests: first, that only a judge can issue warrants of arrest; and second, that warrants of arrest must be issued only upon probable cause.

They added that the implementing rules and regulation of the ATA could not correct the constitutional infirmities of Section 29.

They also complained that the prolonged detention of 14 days, extendible for another 10 days, is odious and oppressive.

A prolonged detention of an accused is fraught with dangers to security because the person might be tortured or coerced to confession, or it could lead to the manufacture of “evidence.”

The accused would also be deprived of the speedy disposition of his case, to avail himself of the right to bail and petition for writ of habeas corpus or amparo. – Elizabeth Marcelo