Puwesa ng Bayaning Atleta (PBA) party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles on Sunday said that civil rights provisions in the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 would be further expounded in the implementing rules and regulations to assure the public that the measure would not be used and abused to suppress the people’s civil liberty.
He said he would propose for the IRR to include a whole section dedicated to the accountability of public officers.
He added that there should be an automatic filing of criminal, administrative and civil cases against public officers who would abuse their discretion in carrying out anti-terrorism operations.
“The safeguards in the law must be clear in the implementing rules and regulations to be very sure that the anti-terror law will only be used against terrorists,” he said.
Citing the Global Terrorism Index, Nograles said the Philippines is ranked ninth and the only Southeast Asian country in the top 10 of the index.
“The Human Security Act of 2007 is not enough to fight the evolved nature of terrorism. As an example, our law enforcement and security forces cannot go after a foreign terrorist in our own land because we have not yet legally defined a foreign terrorist until this Anti-Terror Bill. I believe if the President signs the Bill into Law, the foreign terrorists will think 1,000 times before entering the Philippines again,” he said.
Nograles said he would push for the inclusion of special sections in the IRRs solely dedicated to fully spell out the law’s provisions in protecting the people’s civil liberties.
“The threat of terrorism is a clear and present danger now. People forget that just last year, we had our first suicide bombing in Jolo and in that suicide bombing, there was an actionable intelligence to prevent such suicide bombing. However, the Human Security Act of 2007 does not enough teeth that would have allowed us to stop the suicide bomber even before he could carry out his mission,” he said.
Under the Human Security Act of 2007, a predicate crime must be committed before a suspected terrorist is arrested “whereas the Anti-terrorism Act of 2020 can give government forces the right to stop and arrest a suicide bomber the moment he starts collecting materials to build the bomb.”