The signing by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte of Republic Act No. 11479, otherwise known as Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA), heralds a new dawn in the country’s fight against the ruthless global crime against humanity: Terrorism.
The ATA will provide the government the legal weapon to ensnare the terrorists at their trail even before they can launch their ruthless and savage attacks against it thereby preserving its national security and promoting the general welfare of the Filipino people.
Despite the cacophony of dissenting voices from a virulent and noisy minority, the President in another display of political will inked his signature on the ATB to advance and protect the interests of the Filipino nation against what may be deemed to be the highest form of criminality.
A retired Justice of the Supreme Court questions the definition of terrorism under the law’s Section 4 as being vague. On the contrary, Section 4 gives a precise definition of terrorism by providing an exclusive enumeration of terroristic acts for the education of government enforcement agents. They are put on notice that all actions not identified therein can not be classified as terrorism. “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.” What the law does not include, it excludes.
It is also clear that any terroristic act mentioned in Section 4 must be done “to intimidate the general public or a segment thereof, create an atmosphere or spread a message of fear, to provoke or influence by intimidation the government or any of its international organization, or seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic, or social structures of the country, or create a public emergency or seriously undermine public safety,” before the same can ripen to the crime of terrorism.
More importantly, Section 4 explicitly states that terrorism does not include “advocacy, protest, dissent, stoppage of work, industrial or mass action, and other similar exercises of civil and political rights, 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.”
Moreover, Section 48 of the law is categorical in banning those suspected or convicted of crimes penalized thereby from being subjected to extraordinary rendition, the definition of which is also clearly specified under Section 3 thereof.
Consistent with his character, the President did not give in to the pressure of external forces, such as United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who were asking him not to sign the measure into law. Ms. Bachelet’s biases against the Philippines are revealed by the fact that the UN itself, through the Resolutions of its Security Council, deplores terrorism and its actors, and urges its member states to legislate effective measures to counter and eliminate terroristic acts. These are Resolution Numbers 1373 (2001), 1624 (2005) and 2396 (2017), among others.
In reiteration, Republic Act No. 11479 contains safeguards against violations of political and civil rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution, and as promoted by public international law. The President himself will ensure that there will be no abuses in its enforcement even as he is resolute in prosecuting those who transgress the law’s impositions.
