SENATE APPROVAL OF ANTI-TERROR BILL: Pres. Arroyo Tramples on the Bill of Rights while the Opposition watches in the sideline

SENATE APPROVAL OF ANTI-TERROR BILL: Pres. Arroyo Tramples on the Bill of Rights while the Opposition watches in the sidelines
Reference Person: Atty. Neri Javier Colmenares
CODAL Counsels for the Defense of Liberties

CODAL condemns the approval on second reading last night by the Senate of the anti-terror bill without any active objection from supposed human rights advocates in both the Senate majority and minority. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who has not been remorseful for his role in the violation of human rights violations during martial law, has successfully forced a draconian measure that will trample on the civil and political rights of the people without a whimper from many oppositionists except for the active opposition of Sen. Jamby Madrigal and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel. Sen. Enrile seeks to hoodwink the people by allowing proposed amendments to his bill that limits the power of the Executive, with the intention of inserting them back to the bill during the bicameral conference. The bill is not only an attack on the civil rights of legitimate dissenters and members of the opposition, but also includes attacks on the media and the freedom of the press, and the business sector and legitimate business transactions.

Threats and Attacks on the Media

The anti-terror bill threatens members of the media under Section 5 (accomplice) or Section 6 (accessory) by punishing persons “who, having knowledge of the …conspiracy to commit terrorism and without having participated therein .. profits from it” or conceals its conspirators. An innocent interview with a suspected ‘terrorist’ will open a media person to prosecution as accessory. CODAL suspects that Sen. Enrile’s acquiescence to Sen. Jamby Madrigal’s demand that the media be exempted from being wiretapped under Section 7 is a temporary setback for Sen. Enrile who is expected to delete the exemption during the bicameral conference. CODAL notes that media personalities have been publicly accused by certain government officials of having ‘links with terrorists’.

Further capital flight resulting from threats or attacks on the business community and
legitimate business transactions

The bill can cripple opposition businessmen and politicians with its provision that allows the examination (Sections 27 and 28) and freezing (Sections 30 and 37) of bank accounts of persons ‘charged or suspected’ of the crime of terrorism. It is bad enough that DOJ Sec. Raul Gonzalez can charge with ‘conspiring’ to terrorism selected members of the Makati Business Club, for example, and pave the way for the freezing of their accounts. It is worse if bank accounts of mere ‘suspects’ can now be opened even without being charged in court.

Furthermore, the bill includes the over broad provision under Sec. 27 (b) which authorizes the executive to ‘gather or cause the gathering of any desired information about such deposits, placements, trust accounts, assets and records from a bank or a financial institution’, virtually allowing the opening of bank accounts of persons other than those suspected of terrorism. These provisions, and those on wiretapping or surveillance, are easily initiated through a mere ‘ex-parte’ application by the authorities. Should Pres. Gloria Arroyo use the anti-terrorism law against her opponents and detractors, there is no watchdog or oversight body that can contest such abuse since the application is ‘ex-parte’ or filed by only one party—the executive branch.

Furthermore, Sec. 37 of the bill punishes any bank official who ‘refuses’ to allow the examination of the said deposits. The bill, which takes away current protection of private deposits and trust accounts and allows the executive the repressive and unhampered authority to freeze these accounts, will not only violate human rights but will also drive huge deposits out of the country and into Swiss or Cayman accounts abroad.

Harsh Impositions: No travel, no text, sms or emails

Sen. Enrile’s bill will create legal history when it punishes a suspect even if the evidence against him is not strong as provided under Section 26:

Sec. 26 Restriction on the Right to Travel—In cases where evidence of guilt is not strong, and the person charged is …granted... bail, the court shall …limit the right of travel of the accused to within the municipality or city where he resides. He or she may also be placed under house arrest by order of the court… While under house arrest, he or she may not use telephones, cell phones, emails, computers, the internet or other means of communications with people outside his residence until otherwise ordered by the court.

Section 26 is not only a restriction on travel, but actually allows the imprisonment of a person who was already allowed bail! Worse, the suspect is not allowed to communicate with ‘persons outside his residence’, a form of incommunicado detention prohibited by the Constitution, even if the evidence of guilt against that person is not strong. No government administration, not even Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, has proposed or supported such a draconian measure, except Pres. Arroyo and her newly designated martial law architect Sen. Enrile. CODAL shudders at the thought of the punishment against an accused if the evidence of guilt is strong. The bill virtually eliminates the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to bail as it punishes and imprisons without trial, an accused supposedly out on bail.

CODAL is concerned why members of the opposition in the Senate except for Sen. Jamby Madrigal and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, have not even raised any expression of concern on this unacceptable violation of constitutional rights of the accused, which may in the end be used against members of the opposition themselves.

Indefinite Detention

Section 29 of the bill also provides for an indefinite detention, which is unconstitutional since Article VII, Sec. 18 of the Constitution only allows a maximum of three days detention:

Sec. 29—In the event of an actual or imminent terrorist attack, suspects may not be detained for more than three days without the written approval of a…. municipal, city, provincial official of a human rights commission… or a judge’

This provision actually allows for indefinite detention of a person upon orders of an ‘official’ of an amorphous “human rights commission” who is not constitutionally equipped with the powers to order the arrest of anyone, much less, order an indefinite detention. And the detainee under this provision, is not even a judicially charged person but a mere ‘suspect’. Furthermore, the evidentiary threshold of ‘imminent’ terrorist attack is easily manufactured by police or military generals who always, and falsely, warn of infiltrators or imminent rebel attacks based on unfounded and much abused ‘intelligence reports’ every time there is a big rally being planned. Under the anti-terror bill, any person, suspected of rebellion or insurrection, which are considered a terrorist act under Sec. 3 of the Bill, may now be detained indefinitely upon orders of a municipal officer, another blatant blow against the Constitutional provision on the judiciary under Article VIII.

Betrayal at the Bicameral

CODAL believes that Sen. Enrile, treacherously allowed amendments to his bill to lull objectors into complacency, but will reinsert the agreed deletions during the bicameral conference. His easy acquiescence to and approval of amendments that are decisively and essentially incompatible with his bill are evidence of this sinister scheme, as shown by these examples:

1. He allowed an amendment under section 9 which grants the person being surveilled or whose communications are being tapped the ‘right to be informed of the acts done by the law enforcement agencies’ . This amendment requires an intelligence officer conducting surveillance or tapping the phone of a subject to inform the subject that his phone is being tapped or he is under surveillance. The wily senator would not have accepted this amendment, which virtually renders surveillance and tapping useless, if he has no intention of deleting this in the bicameral conference.
2. Sen. Enrile allowed an amendment which imposes on the police the obligation to pay a persons whose accounts were frozen, the staggering amount of P50,000.00 for EACH day that the account was frozen. This is an impossible imposition that has no other fate except being subsequently deleted in the bicam.

The anti-terror law will contain many more reprehensible provisions including the dangerously broad definition of terrorism virtually destroying the peace process, proscription of organizations declared as ‘terrorist’ which will trample on the right of association and assembly, and intensified wiretapping that will set aside constitutional rights to privacy and rendered legitimate dissenters to abuse and attacks from the ruling administration.

Conclusion

The fact that many opposition senators did not actively oppose the anti-terror bill shows that the forces lobbying for the same go beyond Pres. Gloria Arroyo and Sec. Norberto Gonzalez. CODAL believes that the United States government which has publicly berated the Philippines for failing to pass an anti-terror law, is the only force powerful enough to whip even opposition senators into a passive role during the deliberation of the bill. CODAL argues that ‘terrorism’ and the battle against it cannot be legislated. In fact, CODAL is concerned that the very passage of the anti-terrorism bill will be used against innocent members of the Muslim community and will only inspire ‘terrorist’ attacks against government.

The anti-terror bill is nothing more than a weapon that will be used against legitimate dissenters and further intensify human rights violations in the country since acts by Abu Sayaff and Al Qaeda are already dealt with by existing laws. CODAL urges the Senate to decisively vote it down when it is presented on its third and final reading today. The Senate, especially the opposition, cannot be ‘principals by indispensable cooperation’ in the imposition of an undeclared martial rule in the country.