The Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) was passed into law during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
ATA is the most challenged law in the country’s recent history as nearly 40 petitions were filed before the Supreme Court questioning its constitutionality. Before its enactment, then President Rodrigo Duterte and his cohorts resorted to red-tagging anyone critical of the government.
Bulatlat covered how progressive groups and advocates pushed back against the ATA and warned of its implications on civil liberties. Unfortunately, the high court upheld the ATA. In recent years, it is being used as a weapon of choice against activists.
"...[t]here is a compelling necessity and urgency to prevent, running up to almost two (2) months before the oral arguments, any further implementation of the provisions of the assailed law as they impact on the lives, liberties and security of the petitioners and the public at large.”
This is not the first time that a national minority was charged with terrorism.
“The issuance of the IRR has set the stage for the unimpeded implementation of the assailed law; the targeting of activists and critics of the government; the suppression of dissent; and the curtailment of civil and political rights, all in the altar of national security,” the motion read.
With the release of implementing rules and regulations, experts and concerned citizens see the potential of the law of being abused and used against those who simply want to express their opinion on issues affecting the country.
“No one, save its proponents, is safe from the assailed law. Thus, the issues surrounding its validity are matters of public concern of which the public have the right to be informed.”
The Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), created under the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020, has been a major concern for activists and human rights organizations. The ATC, after all, has broad powers like designating individuals and organizations as terrorists without due process.
In their separate opinions, three justices voted against the constitutionality of Section 29, which allows the detention of a suspected terrorist even without judicial warrant of arrest. It also allows a longer period of detention from 14 up to 24 days without charges or warrant of arrest.
The Anti-Terrorism Act violates international standards on human rights and countering-terrorism with its vague and overboard definitions of “terrorism” as well as the excessive powers it grants to the Executive branch of the government.
"The terror law is added ammunition to the existing arsenal of repressive laws against the Indigenous and Moro people. This is a mockery to the exercise of our fundamental rights”
In their petition, church leaders assailed that the vagueness of the Republic Act No. 11479 or the Anti-Terror Act of 2020 will expose them to “credible threat of prosecution” for their ministries and advocacies.
“Hence, one’s acts may constitute terrorism when the law’s implementors adjudge them to be so. One does not know what acts constitute disobedience of the law. One does not know when and why she or he had become a terrorist.”
Updated July 23, 9:16 p.m. By ALYSSA MAE CLARIN Bulatlat.com MANILA— Journalists, artists, and free expression advocates filed the 14th petition today, July 23, before the Supreme Court against RA 114979, or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. Joined by almost 40...
Forty-four leaders of various organizations appealed to the high court to declare the law unconstitutional, for it “insidiously encroaches upon fundamental and constitutional rights, such arbitrary deprivation of the right to life, liberty and property and the non-observance of the right to due process and to presumption of innocence.”
“The law serves as the trigger for a hand that has long been poised to shoot. Verily, the prosecution and escalated persecution of activists, dissenters, and even ordinary citizens who dare harbor opinions contrary to the government line are not questions of ‘if,’...
Community journalists, artists, writers, activists and dissenters are not spared from the law’s dangerous provisions such as surveillance.
Behind his macho posture and ashen face, Duterte is afraid to the core. He is fighting against the prospect of him being made to account for all his crimes. He is doing everything to stop us, the Filipino people, from exercising our right to have better governance and better society.
“The proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 undermines constitutionally protected rights to political expression and dissent by equating activism with terrorist activities that are defined under the law.”
“We are against terrorism but the law [against terrorism] should not violate human rights and the Philippine Constitution.”
Human rights lawyer Ephraim Cortez pointed out that the definition of terrorism under Republic Act 11479 is vague and over broad, and could include humanitarian groups which have long been subjected to red-tagging.
“Given the vast and greater powers bestowed under the law, it will have a wide-ranging effects of violating existing constitutionally-guaranteed rights of our people, thus, the issuance of a ?shield against injustice, a temporary restraining order, against its...
They appealed to the member-States of the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt and endorse High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s report, including recommendations for continuous monitoring and independent and impartial investigation of the...