LOCAL OFFICIALS TOLD WHY MINORITY SENATORS ARE AGAINST RUSHING PASSAGE OF ANTI-TERRORISM ACT

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. (PDP-Laban) today asked local government officials to look closely at the reasons why a number of senators want Congress to go slow on the passage of an Anti-Terrorism Act before denouncing their stand.

Reacting to the criticism of the League of Municipalities of the Senate for not passing the controversial proposal, Pimentel said certain local government officials do not seem to understand the position of the Senate, particularly of the opposition members on the issue.

“Nobody in the Senate is against the idea of fighting terrorists. Terrorists must be neutralized, otherwise, they toy with the lives of our people,” Pimentel said.

“That said, it is also important to understand that fighting terrorism effectively should not be made the equivalent of allowing law enforcement agencies to ride roughshod over the liberties of our people whose lives we are protecting.”

According to the minority leader, even in the United States which passed the most comprehensive anti-terrorism law, the Patriot Act, in the aftermath of 9-11 (terrorist bombings of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001), the lawmakers are now reviewing the draconian provisions of the Act.

“Lawmakers who originally supported the passage of the Patriot Act are now revising their stand. They want to make sure that the very liberties they wanted to protect under the Act are not sacrificed in the name of the fight against terrorism,” he said.

“In our case, we want to make sure that Juan de la Cruz, the ordinary man on the street, the fisherman, the farmer, the businessman, yes, even the professional, is protected from harassment of those who wield power.”

Pimentel said the minority senators are apprehensive that the abuses committed by law enforcement agencies, for example, in the case of the five Estrada supporters who were picked up in Kamuning, Quezon City without a warrant and who were subsequently tortured is not replicated under the Anti-Terrorism Law. And worse examples are the extra-judicial killings that proliferate today apparently without any judicious end in sight, he said.

He said they are apprehensive that if human rights violations are committed today, without an Anti-Terrorism Law by the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration and her collaborators in “the arm-wielders” in government, it stands to reason that they would be more emboldened to do so with an Anti-Terrorism Law legitimizing their crimes.

“It is for that reason that we want to craft and pass an Anti-Terrorism Law that runs after the guilty but safeguards the rights of the innocent,” Pimentel said.

“Thus, we ask the impatient among the local government officials to keep calm and look at the issue of fighting terrorism, not from the perspective of expediency of the hour but from the broader outlook of the need to promote the security of our people and at the same time protecting their most fundamental freedoms and liberties that the Constitution safeguards.”

Date: October 17, 2006
Ref: Omeng / (02) 5526731