STATEMENT - Anti-Terrorism Bill: GMA's added ammo vs. the people

The Anti-Terrorism Bill is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo' s legal cover to go after her critics. Thus, the railroading of such a repressive law would only allow the administration additional ammunition against the Filipino people. Knowing the administration's indiscriminate attacks against anyone who is critical of the government, anyone who simply gripes about hunger can now be tagged as terrorist.

Inday Cuñado from Bohol; Eden Marcellana, Juvy Magsino and Leima Fortu from Oriental Mindoro; these are just among the 83 women killed under GMA's rule. These are women who simply voiced out the sentiment of the millions of impoverished Filipinos.

The violent nature of GMA's administration explains the alarming rate at which leaders, members and supporters of militant organizations and partylists are being brutally killed, abducted or harassed. She and her lackeys can lie through their teeth all they want but only in vain. With the intensification of political killings that the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill will surely bring, GMA will also expose herself more than ever as a militarist illegitimate President.

The 2007 Elections is looming over the people and so is the threat of intensified violence. Since GMA and her minions in the legislation were able to railroad the Anti-Terrorism Bill in time for the elections, then the incoming elections could be the bloodiest "exercise in democracy" that this nation would witness. The Anti-Terrorism Bill would provide GMA the buffer for her alarming exercise of violence against the people.

Kaira Zoe Alburo
Provincial Coordinator
Gabriela-Cebu