In the Philippines, terrorism still imposes threats to its people. For this reason, the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2020 is meant to protect the common welfare and safety of Filipinos. However, this caused an uproar in our community due to the fact that a part of the new law curtails human rights and freedom of speech. Ironically, it must keep the lives of Filipinos safe but this endangers it instead.
Section No. 4 of this law stated "terrorism as defined in this section shall not include advocacy, protest, dissent, stoppage of work, industrial or mass action, and other similar exercises of civil and political rights," but it also stated an exception, "which are not intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person, to endanger a person's life, or to create a serious risk to public safety."
Basically, there is an exception to the exception; hence, how can this be a safeguard to advocacy? To make things worse, 'Section No. 29. Detention Without Judicial Warrant of Arrest.' allows law enforcement agent or military personnel to arrest someone who is suspected of committing the acts defined and penalized in Sections 4-12. Atty. Howard Calleja, one of the lawyers that filed the first petition against the Anti-Terror Law before the Supreme Court, explained that the general rule is supposed to be not allowing arrests without a warrant granted by the judge through probable cause. However, under this law, the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) can give notice to a law enforcer, and the law enforcer will use that notice to be able to detain a suspected person for a maximum of 24 days. Let me repeat, suspected, which means you can be detained for 24 days without being charged with any crime since you will be under investigation first. This is in contrast to our constitutional law, wherein custody should not be longer than three days and you should also be charged with a crime within those three days upon arrest. In short, you cannot be arrested or detained without any warrant or any crimes charged against you.
In conclusion, the application of this law is alarming since it is flawed and inconsistent with the constitution. This somehow turns something illegal into something legal. Even though they might say that the police are well-trained, I personally find it difficult to trust them nowadays after what happened during the extrajudicial killings. This could be considered as a way to silence opposition and also a way of oppression to democracy. My point is that other Filipino citizens, might not be aware that they are already violating this law, before they know it, they are already detained. Meanwhile, some Filipinos might restrain themselves from voicing their rights and opinions due to the vagueness of this law. I agree that we need a law to protect Filipinos from terrorism but I am certain that this is not that law. How will this protect Filipinos from terrorism if this will define other Filipinos who are voicing their human rights and concerns as terrorists? Thus, the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2020 should be repealed and its implementation must be stopped.
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Author's Note: The following essays after this one are discussing different debatable topics. It's our exam week so I have tons of paperwork to share and here they are (honestly, these were tiring to write) I do hope you have learned something. If you did, leave a vote. It actually makes my day more than you think.
I also shared these not only to help you with school but to also bring awareness to such relevant topics that we should not take lightly. I would love to hear your thoughts as well regarding the issues I attempted to discuss. Feel free to leave a comment! :)