#JunkTerrorBill: On a Bill that impedes the right of the Filipino People
On May 29, the Philippine Congress approved the senate version of the the Terror Bill which posses as a major threat to freedom of speech, especially during this times when dissent in media platforms is becoming a trend for the modern-day Filipino.
(Credits to College Editors Guild of the Philippines, CEGP)
Now, you might think that this bill just happened to come around but the timing is all too convinient. The reason why dissent is rising among the masses is because the executive branch of the government has frankly done a piss poor job at handling the Pandemic. They have continued to keep us quarantined, with only those considered essential businesses allowed to remain for months. It is only now in June that they have allowed people to work as long as they keep at a skeletal system. The main problem comes down to the fact that the government has yet to implement mass testing and even contract tracing for the matter, making the quanratine lose all meaning in the first place. To add up to all this, the administration continues to accumulate debt to “fight the pandemic” but claim they do not have the budget for mass testing.
And to make matters worse, the head of the administration decides to fight a virus the only way he’s been fighting things, with machismo and guns. There have been cases where the police overstepped their bounds under the banner of ‘keeping the quarantine safe’ wherein they broke into a private residential building and also a homeless shelter because these places allegedly did not follow quarantine protocols. There was also a case of a soldier killing a veteran having an episode despite the residents of the area shouting he had PTSD and to leave him be. We cannot also discount the rapid increase of the Extrajudicial Killings fueled by the executive’s drug war that pretty much ramped up police brutality in the Philippines by quite a lot.
Now, this bill is giving them more power to by-pass the Judiciary which is the only thing keeping them in check. As per Rappler: “ the bill would allow the Anti-Terror Council (ATC), made up of top cabinet officials, to do functions otherwise reserved for courts, like ordering the arrests of people it has designated to be terrorists.”
Here are some as cited by CEGP. Below are some of the sections of Bill 1083, aka Terror Bill, although it feels rather more approriate to be called Martial Law 2.0. Below are some of the questionable provisions in the bill.
These two provisions are quite questionable as their vagueness could allow tagging of dissenters as terrorists. The head of the executive branch is actually quite fond of using mixed words and blurring the lines between dissenters who only criticize in hopes of improvement of the system as opposed to terrorists who seek to destroy it. This only adds oil to the fire, really.
Here we see that included in the wiring tapping are those individuals accused solely upon mere suspicion that would allow the police to invade our privacy just because we criticized the government a little too much more than they like. Now, there have been restrictions here either like between lawyers and clients or doctors and patients but this still stands that this is an invation of privacy,
Now Sec. 29. Detention Without Judicial Warrant of Arrest that takes the cake out of them all. Persons again tagged as terrorists by the ATC under mere suspicion can be detained for up to 24 days without a warrant, which is the first line of defense you have against a police violating your human rights. Although, if you do look up the entire provision, included is a follow up action of reporting to a court Judge “immediately”, there lacks a specific timeframe around the word “immediately” that again could allow the police advantage via vaugeness of this bill in their favor.
The purpose of this bill is so obvious that National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers chair Neri Colmenares even spoke up, stating that “ This isn’t really to go after the Abu Sayyaf or terrorists, or whoever they call as terrorists… I think the reason they actually need this bill is for the dissenters, the opposition.” (translated from Tagalog).
Save the voice of the Filipinos. Do not let them change the narrative. Hold the governement accountable for their lapses. Dissent is not terrorism. Dissent is duty. #JunkTerrorBill
(Since tumblr eats up links, links will be provided with with a reblog. Included there is a petition to junk this bill. Please sign!)
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