Challenging Anti-Terrorism Act

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

It was expected since Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. Legal luminaries, as groups and individuals, have declared to bring to the Supreme Court the issue of the constitutionality of several sections of the law, signed last week by President Duterte. In fact, right after the President signed it, objectors sent to the Supreme Court by email their challenge, the hard copy probably filed by the time this column comes out.

I have quoted here several of the arguments and expressed our own fears about the law, but we can only express an opinion. The arbiter is the High Court, but we believed that the ultimate judge will be the people of this country.

Granting that for whatever reasons the SC will junk the petitions of the objectors because of pressure on the justices, the opposition will bring the matter to the streets and international forums.

Law professors from the Far Eastern University led by Dean Mel Sta. Maria have already questioned before the Supreme Court the constitutionality of thirteen provisions of Republic Act 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. In their 84-page petition, they said these provisions of the law are, on their face, “in gross violation of the 1987 Constitution and prevailing jurisprudence.

“Their implementation shall have a serious and dangerous chilling effect on the citizens and other persons’ freedom of expression, speech and the press, as well as other important fundamental rights under the 1987 Constitution, such as but not limited to substantial and procedural due process, the right to privacy, freedom of association, and academic freedom.”

These ominous 13 provisions, they said, can be facially challenged because it will produce a “chilling effect” and result in the prior restraint of freedom of speech, of expression, of the press, of association, and of assembly.

For instance, Section 4 of the law defines Terrorism which petitioner said provides for an “overly broad definition to cover traditionally recognized and protected forms of expression against government shortcomings and excess.”

They said the assailed provision “implies that all speeches may be treated as within the punishable acts defined under the Act unless it is shown that no intent to cause harm…”

Another area of contention is the “enormous powers” of the Anti-Terrorism Council which has the authority to “determine who are terrorists, and to detain them of up to 24 hours without court warrants.”

The challengers said the ATC has been given a plethora of powers and functions, including but not limited to the power to, among others, “grant monetary rewards and other incentives to informers who give vital information leading to the apprehension, arrest, detention, prosecution, and conviction of any persons found guilty of any of the acts defined and penalized under Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the Act.

“It indubitably gives law enforcement agents and military personnel unbridled discretion to arbitrarily flex their muscle in carrying out its provisions merely on the basis of their ‘suspicion,’ intuition, or understanding.”

“If this law will be allowed to take effect, it will legitimize wrongdoings, allow transgressions to constitutional liberties, and give license for wrongdoers to act with impunity,” they added.

According to the petitioners, Sections 5 to 12 defined “ancillary or secondary offenses, including inciting to commit terrorism, are patently vague and overbroad. Said provisions create a ‘chilling effect’ that would constitute prior restraint to, and stifle the free exercise of, such fundamental freedoms.”

On the other hand, Sections 25 and 29 legitimize warrantless arrests based on mere suspicion. The petitioners said these sections “completely disregard and violate Article III, Section 2 of the fundamental law by supplanting the Constitutional requirements before an individual may be arrested and deprived of liberty, namely a judicially issued warrant of arrest and the stringent requisites for a lawful warrantless arrest.

“The threat of arrest without a judicial warrant and prolonged detention, would be more than chilling enough to stifle, suppress, if not totally snuff out, any fire, flame, or even flicker, of indignation or protest against government corruption, oppression and abuse.”

I have cited these same arguments in my previous columns and the media in the Philippines are all quoting the same reasons for the opposition. We will hear more as several groups are gearing to file their petitions.

We leave this issue to the wisdom of the Court.