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President Arroyo on Tuesday signed
into law a landmark antiterrorism law that brings the country into
line with its Southeast Asian neighbors battling Islamic militants.
Critics,
however, say the Human Security Act of 2007 (Republic Act 9372) has
been too watered down over the years to be effective, while
human-rights activists say it will lead to more human-rights abuses.
The President
said the law is a “landmark” that “upgrades our preemptive
capability to check the conspiracies of harm and mass murder, and
contain the movement of arms and funds to sow mayhem.”
She said it
would boost the campaign against Muslim militants such as the Abu
Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah, both allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda
terrorist network.
The United
States and Australia welcomed the signing of the law, saying it was
“a positive step forward in countering and preventing
terrorism.”
The US and
Australia have invested heavily in military training and equipment
for the Philippine Armed Forces.
The law is the
first in the Philippines specifically to address terrorist offenses,
defining terrorism as a criminal act that “causes widespread and
extraordinary fear and panic among the populace.”
It grants
authorities access to bank accounts they believe are being used to
launder money for terrorist groups.
It also
upholds the right of security forces to detain suspects without
charge for three days, a provision already on the law books.
Congress
passed the act a little over two weeks ago in a special session
called by Mrs. Arroyo.
The bill was
introduced a decade ago, four years before Islamic militants
hijacked US aircraft which they used to crash into the World Trade
Center in New York and the Pentagon.
But critics
say the act has been diluted too much to be effective.
The more
stringent provisions of the bill were removed by opposition
legislators, who charged that they could be used to harass
government critics.
Human-rights
activists and leftists charge it could lead to abuses.
The Arroyo
administration has been criticized by the United Nations for a wave
of killings of hundreds of leftist dissidents, many of whom the
military allege worked for front organizations of the communist
insurgency.
Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in a statement released by the
Australian Embassy in Manila said: “It will strengthen the legal
regime for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to justice
terrorists and their supporters who are captured in the
Philippines.”
Security
officials have said the law falls short of what they wanted but that
it is a “good start” that could lead to stronger measures
against terrorist groups.
The Abu Sayyaf
has carried out bombings and mass kidnappings that have left
hundreds dead.
Thousands of
Filipino soldiers, with US assistance and training, are hunting down
the Abu Sayyaf leadership in Jolo.
The government
is also battling a nearly four-decade-old communist insurgency that
is widely suspected of having links with legal leftist groups.
Under the law,
there will be “no safe haven for terror in our country,” the
President said, adding that “law-abiding Filipinos have nothing to
fear in this law for it is a weapon that shall be wielded against
bombers and not protesters.”
The law,
however, includes a safeguard against illegal or warrantless
arrests. Section 50 states that a person who is acquitted of
terrorism is entitled to damages of P500,000 “for every day that
he or she has been detained or deprived of liberty or arrested
without a warrant.”
Retired
general Benjamin Defensor, former chief of the Asia Pacific Economic
Council on Counterterrorism Task Force, said the antiterror law
marks the official entry of the Philippines into the international
counterterrorism regime.
Among those
who witnessed the signing ceremony in Malacañang were Speaker
Jose de Venecia, Reps. Marcelino Libanan, Simeon Datumanong and
Amado Espino and Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon Revilla Jr. and
Alfredo Lim.
House Deputy
Minority Leader Satur Ocampo called the day the law was signed
“a day of infamy, the death knell to our civil liberties and human
rights we fought hard to regain from the fascist dictatorship.”
Ocampo was
among the militant lawmakers who opposed the antiterrorism measure
believing it could be used by the Arroyo government “to silence
and crush all manner of resistance to its acts of lying, cheating,
stealing and killing.”
“Even the
formal title of the law- Human Security Act of 2007—is an insult
to the intelligence of the Filipino people,” Ocampo said.
Party-list
Rep. Liza Maza warned that charges of fraud in the May elections
might trigger an avalanche of arrests invoking the antiterror law.
Team Unity
Deputy spokesman Antonio Albano allayed fears of the opposition that
the antiterrorism law would be used for repression.
“We allay
fears of the opposition that we will use the bill [against them],”
Albano said.
Albano hinted
that those who are afraid of the law might have connections with
terrorists themselves.
 --Sam
Mediavilla,
Maricel V. Cruz and AFP
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