"Why not fix the law in the first place and guarantee there will be no abuses?"
Whether we like it or not, the draconian anti-terror bill will likely be signed into law soon.
The Palace spokesman said as much when he said President Rodrigo Duterte was inclined to sign the much criticized bill into law—even though he later admitted that the Chief Executive has not actually read the document, which was being reviewed by the Office of the Executive Secretary.
The admission that the President had not yet even read the bill but was inclined to approve it speaks volumes of the administration’s true intentions. It was the President, after all, who in the middle of a pandemic and when people were reeling over the effects of a prolonged lockdown, certified the bill as urgent—leading a compliant Congress to give him what he wanted.
The 2020 anti-terrorism bill seeks to replace the Human Security Act of 2007, which the military says is outdated and insufficient to fight modern-day terrorism.
The new measure enables security forces to arrest suspects without a legal warrant, hold them without charges for up to 24 days and wiretap them for up to 90 days. Additionally, it will create an anti-terror council made up of Cabinet members who will define what constitutes terrorism and certify individuals as terror suspects, leaving them open to arrest without warrant.
Human rights groups here and abroad as well as various civil society groups and the political opposition see these expanded state powers as a recipe for abuse. The anti-terror council, for example, made up of officials appointed by the President, would in effect take the place of courts, which up until now had the exclusive authority to issue arrest warrants. When this bill becomes law, such warrants will become unnecessary, as long as the politically appointed members of the anti-terror council designate a person as a terror suspect.
Unlike the courts, this council would not have even a shred of independence from the executive department, and therefore would offer no useful checks and balances over state security forces.
Tellingly, none of the statements issued by the Palace and its allies adequately address these concerns.
The Department of Justice, for example, grubbling to find a way to make the law more politically palatable, says it will address these concerns when it drafts the implementing rules and regulations of the law. The notion that you can “fix” a bad law by putting in place “better” implementing rules and regulations is strange, to say the least. Why not fix the law in the first place and guarantee there will be no abuses.
Other Palace allies say the law has safeguards in place—but point to the anti-terror council as one of those safeguards, ignoring the nature of the council and its allegiance to the President.
Even lower on the intellectual ladder is the threat. Don’t blame the administration, one senator says, if someone you know is killed by terrorism because you wanted to junk this bill.
Finally, there is the offense-as-defense approach, which stupidly dares critics to denounce known terrorist groups, as if doing so would resolve any of the innate problems in the anti-terror bill.
It is all and good that the Palace undergoes a process of review for any bill that is sent to the President for signature. In this case, however, maybe they should drop the pretense and sign it into law—so somebody can challenge its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.