"For checks and balances, are we simply to put our faith in a council made up of the President’s loyal and trusted men?"
Perhaps if Senate President Vicente Sotto III had thought about it for a moment longer, he would not have blurted out that the new anti-terrorism bill that Congress rushed to pass would negate the need for martial law.
Presumably, he thought this was a good thing, given the country’s distrust of one-man rule enforced by the military and state police, which left millions of Filipinos traumatized during the dark period of our history that began in 1972. Sotto should remember this period well. After all, he composed one of the iconic anthems celebrating the ouster of a dictator in 1986 and the restoration of democracy that followed.
How is it, then, that this same person would believe that those of us who lived under the yoke of a dictatorship would welcome a bill that gives the President all the coercive power he needs without even having to go to Congress to declare martial law?
Human rights advocates argue that the anti-terrorism bill that originated in the Senate and that was adopted and approved by the House of Representatives, would endanger our basic rights and freedoms.
While the bill is promoted as one that would strengthen the government’s ability fight and catch terrorists, these same provisions can be used to arrest and detain anyone who expresses legitimate dissent.
The bill, for example, would allow an Anti-Terror Council (ATC), made up of top Cabinet officials, to authorize arrests of people it suspects as being terrorists—a function that should be the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts. Such suspects may be arrested and detained without a warrant, as long as it is authorized by the ATC.
The power of the ATC recalls the Star Chamber in England, which became synonymous with social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power it wielded, before it was abolished in 1641.
The historical abuses of the Star Chamber, in fact, led the United States to adopt the Fifth Amendment to its Constitution, which guaranteed a suspect’s rights to due process and against self incrimination.
The new terror bill enables the authorities to sidestep these rights through the simple expedience of declaring someone—say, a political opponent—a “suspected terrorist.”
The bill also exempts law enforcement agents from any liability for wrongful arrests or failure to bring an arrested person to court within the prescribed time.
“Suspected terrorists” may be detained without charges for up to 24 days.
But the Senate president is adamant that the Human Security Act of 2007, which the bill seeks to replace, is one of the weakest in the world. He offers no detailed analysis of why he says this is so, or even any evidence that it is true.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, does that justify passing a law that makes it easy for the government to abuse its power and curtail our civil liberties? What is to stop the government from wrongly designating any political opponent or critic a “terrorist”? For checks and balances, are we simply to put our faith in a council made up of the President’s loyal and trusted men? The prospect strikes terror in our hearts.