A terroristic law

Friday, February, 2 2007

T.G.I.F By Rene Saguisag A terroristic law

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/july/13/yehey/opinion/20070713opi4.html At 2 a.m. on Tuesday last, a client called but I was dead to the world. I could not return her calls until early that morning and it was only late that afternoon that we made contact. I heard a familiar tale of woe. To begin with, her mobile phone was on “low bat” because her charger in her car was gone with it. And thereby hangs a tale. The night before she was stopped for no reason on and was taken to some Metro Manila police mini-station. Found clean, the cops said at the end, “Paano na ang para sa hepe?” She said she had nothing. They said she had better produce. All she could think of was a relative not too far away and there they drove. Once she got inside the house, she was too petrified to do anything. The scalawags drove away at 2:30 a.m., in her vehicle, where her charger was. Can you imagine the bargaining power of the rogues once the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA) enters into force presently? It may heighten the insecurity of many people on the planet due to its extraordinary extraterritorial reach under its Section 53. The law is to take effect “two months after the elections are held in May 2007.” And “[t]hereafter, the provisions of this Act shall be automatically suspended one month before and two months after holding of any election.” Meaning, one may move then without being deemed a terrorist subject to severe measures. If the al-Qaeda operatives level a tall building on Election Day and kill thousands, that would not violate the Act, when in fact some such 9/11 act should be the real intent of the law. A good provision is that only the Court of Appeals will issue a written order to wire­tap, and not leave the task to more compliant solo ambitious regional trial court judges. Three would be harder to influence and indeed to corrupt but the recent TRO brouhaha there has called attention to that Court in this respect. Who has money anyway? Section 50 of the law says that “[u]pon acquittal, any person who is accused of terrorism shall be entitled to the payment of damages in the amount of five-hundred thousand pesos [500,000] for every day that he or she has been detained or deprived of liberty or arrested without a warrant as a result of such accusation.” Now, what will the violators use for money? The high amount of damages will facilitate a decision just to send the victim to the Promised Land, instead of dealing with the problem of raising such unrealistic sums. More Jonas Burgoses. If we could only enforce current laws against government abuse, quickly, swiftly and surely, that would be enough to deter. But, like raising the bargaining power of “hulidap” cops, upping the damages would have an allopathic effect, as another example of the operation of the law of unintended consequences. Another provision with an air of unreality has to do with Sec. 26 which says in part that “[w]hile under house arrest, he or she may not use telephones, cell phones, e-mails, computers, the Internet or other means of communication with the people outside the residence until otherwise ordered by the court.” Were I under house arrest, would operatives be with me 24 hours a day in our home to make sure I do not do any of these things? That would validate the concern in the joke—stress, joke—that, “Nakakulong na nga kaming mag-ama, pati ba naman bahay ko, paaaresto pa?” I do not remember any issuance even during the time of martial law that comprised such a litany of human rights violations as we see in the new shameful law, not even the secret national security decree of Mr. Marcos. We use to say PD did not stand for presidential decree but Palakol ng Diablo. How do we call this shameless statute that makes Marcos and Ver look benign? Then, lawyers, not generals, dominated. Even without the new excrescence, all sorts of abuses are going on in a society that has lost its way. Mr. Marcos was a dictator whose word was law. So was “Mrs. Marcos wants this.” But, we were under martial law then. Today, what is our excuse? We look to the Supreme Court, led by activist Chief Justice Rey Puno, who provides a ray of hope, to reject this putrid product of the legislature and militarized executive department. It will keep coming back to haunt not only its very authors, but the rest of us who may say things that could land us in jail for 40 years without parole. What we write could make us a co-plotter with people committing rebellion, insurrection or a coup, by writing sympathetically of the grievances of the suspects. From mere seditionists, we move up to big-league terrorists. But, the real terrorists are in government. The HSA misread the issue of “who will police the terrorist police?” I can see them now, panting, with tongues hanging out, dreaming of moving up from CRVs to Lexuses.