There’s been a lot on my mind lately; particularly thoughts about home, my family, friends, and the most recent law that’s passed through Congress. We can talk about the Philippines’ Anti-Terror Bill more at length, but like all things, I ended up illustrating how I feel.
The Cliff notes is that the bill circumvents the judicial system. It effectively establishes a de facto martial law, granting the Duterte administration sweeping powers to determine for themselves what is, and isn’t acts of terrorism based off the judgements of the ATC (The Anti-Terrorism Council).
This is a council composed of several Cabinet secretaries and security officials. Notably, these people are part of the executive branch of government and are not independent in theory like judges.
In practice, it grants law-enforcers unbridled power to:
- Carry out arrests WITHOUT warrant.
- Hold suspects without charge for 14 days (extendible by 10)
- Sentence those accused of joining or threatening to incite “terror acts” to 12 years imprisonment.
- Sentence those “engaged in a conspiracy to commit terrorism” to life imprisonment without the benefit of parole
- The bill also removes a provision on payment of 500,000 Philippine pesos ($10,000) damages for wrongful detention.
This is state-sanctioned terrorism.
Half of the year is gone. Let’s hope that a happy ending comes at the end of the next half.