Source: Public Relations and Information Department

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House approves anti-terrorism bill
15 December 2005 04:05:06 PM
Writer: Noel Albano/Diony Tubianosa, PRID

The House of Representatives approved on second reading near midnight Wednesday the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2005 in a major step to enhance the Philippines’ capability to meet threats from regional and global terrorism.

Speaker Jose de Venecia said the final enactment of the measure would greatly help the country’s efforts to wage war against all forms of terrorism.

“Approval of the Anti-Terrorism bill reflects our resolve to fight head-on the threats of terrorism,” said de Venecia, whose proposed Inter-faith dialogue was formally adopted by the United Nations last year to isolate religious extremists and resolve through dialogues ethnic and religious conflicts in various regions of the world.

De Venecia lauded two major House committees – Justice chaired by Rep. Simeon Datumanong, and Foreign Affairs headed by Rep. Antonio Cuenco—which steered House Bill 4839 under Committee Report 1154 through hours of often-heated plenary debates during the past weeks.

De Venecia acknowledged the work done to refine the bill by members of the two committees and Deputy Speakers Gerry Salapuddin, Raul del Mar and Emilio Espinosa who took turns presiding over the plenary debates with the steady floor steering by Majority Leader Prospero Nograles and his deputies – Reps. Arthur Defensor, Del de Guzman, among others.

Before approval of the measure at around 9:45 Wednesday night, members– both from the majority and the opposition—agreed to submit later in writing all their proposed individual amendments before the bill’s scheduled third-reading approval when Congress reconvenes on January 16, 2006.

The passage of the measure came amid warnings that the country faces “a clear and present danger” of terrorist attacks following three suicide bombings in Bali, Indonesia on October 1 blamed on the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) which left about 26 people dead and scores wounded.

As approved Wednesday night, the proposed law provides for a 72-hour detention period within which the State must file formal charges against any suspected terrorist. In comparison, the anti-terror laws of the United States and Singapore provide for indefinite detention of suspects, while other countries have detention periods of from 30 days to one (1) year.

Datumanong, who defended the bill in plenary until its passage, said, “we should fight and condemn terrorism as a heinous crime against humanity.”

Cuenco added: “We should not wait for bigger and deadlier terror attacks to convince us of the immediacy and indispensability of an anti-terror law.”

Even as the international community has struggled to provide an appropriate definition to terrorism, the measure approved by the House defines terrorism as “…the premeditated, threatened, actual use of violence or force or any other means that deliberately cause harm to persons, or of force and other destructive means against property or the environment, with the intention of creating or sowing a state of danger, panic, fear, or chaos to the general public or segment thereof, or of coercing or intimidating the government to do or refrain from doing an act.”

The Joint Committee Report, which is yet subject to possible individual amendments, provides for stiff penalties such as imprisonment of not less than six (6) years and one day to 12 years and a fine ranging from P50,000 to P100,000 and from P5-million to P10-million as qualified under the provisions of the proposed Act and/or perpetual disqualification from public office in case the violator are public officials, employees or agents of government, or deportation after serving sentence if the offender is an alien.

Under the proposed anti-terror law, here are some of the many acts the State would consider as terrorism perpetrated by any person or group of persons, whether natural of juridical:

• Threatening or causing death or serious bodily harm to a person or persons;
• Threatening or causing serious risk to the health or safety of the public or any segment of the public;
• Threatening or causing substantial damage or wanton destruction or resorting to arson on critical infrastructure or property, public or private;
• Causing serious or unlawful interference with or serious unlawful disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private;
• Hijacking or threatening to hijack any kind of aircraft, electric or railroad train, locomotive, passenger bus or other means of mass transportation, or public conveyance, or piracy of ship or sea vessel;
• Taking or threatening to kidnap or deprive any person of his/her liberty;
• Killing or violently attacking an internationally protected person or depriving the liberty of such person in violation of the Convention on the Protection and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, and other international agreements;
• Attacking and threatening to attack the cyberspace, by destroying the actual machinery of the information and communication infrastructure, disrupting the technology underlying the Internet, government or private networks or systems, or committing any unlawful act against networks, servers, computers or other information and communication systems;
• Willfully destroying the natural resources in land, water and air, such as forests or marine resources, or internationally causing oil or toxic spillages, or other similar acts of destruction against the environment that threatens ecological security;
• Unlawfully manufacturing, processing, selling, acquiring, possessing, using, diverting, supplying or transporting chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agents, or equipment and instruments used in their production, distribution, release or spread that would endanger directly or indirectly the safety of one or more individuals, or to cause mass destruction or great damage to property; or
• Unlawfully manufacturing, selling, acquiring, supplying, disposing, using or possessing explosives, bombs, grenades, projectiles, devices or other lethal weapons, or substances or machinery used or intended to be used in furtherance of, or incident to, or in connection with, an act of terrorism defined herein.