Leaders of various churches, a coalition of women’s organizations, and members of non-governmental law groups asked the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday to declare as unconstitutional the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) in its entirety.
They also asked the SC to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) that will stop the implementation of ATA under Republic Act No. 11479 that started last July 18.
As of 1 p.m. on Friday, July 24, there have been 19 petitions filed against ATA since it was signed into law by President Duterte last July 3.
The first to file the petition on Friday was the Alternative Law Groups, Inc. (ALG). Its petition was numbered 252765 and received by the SC at 9:08 a.m.
Leaders of churches led by Catholic Bishop Broderick S. Pabillo filed their petition, numbered 252767, at 9:53 a.m.
The grassroots-based women’s organizations were represented in their petition by the General Assembly of Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality Leadership and Action, Inc. (Gabriela). The petition was filed at 10:50 a.m. and was docketed as number 252768.
In its petition, ALG told the SC that “a law which cannot specify the acts that it prohibits cannot be valid.”
It pointed out that “if such law authorizes patent violations of the people’s fundamental liberties on the basis of its nebulous description of the actions that it seeks to prevent, it must be struck down as a direct transgression of the Constitution.”
In stressing that RA 11479 is unconstitutional, ALG invoked “the people’s sacred freedoms - due process, privacy, right against unreasonable searches and seizures, free speech and expression, right to peaceably assemble, and right of association.”
Aside from Bishop Pabillo, who is the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila, among the other petitioner-church leaders were Bishop Reuel Norman Q. Marigza, minister of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP); Rev. Rex B. Reyes Jr. of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines; Bishop Emergencio D. Padillo, member of UCCP’s Council of Bishops; Most Rev. Gerardo A. Alminaza, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Carlos City in Negros Occidental; and Dr. Aldrin M. Penamora of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches.
In justifying their petition, the church leaders told the SC that they “…have set to do what we ought to do… our share to make this country a humane place to live in.”
They said they are “also alarmed about the passage into law of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.”
“The Honorable Court must have heard of people active in social advocacies who are accused of being communists. Even bishops, priests, and the religious were included among those charged by the Philippine National Police with crimes of sedition and inciting to sedition, solely because of their social advocacies,” they said.
“Thousands of people have been killed in police operations on mere suspicion of involvement in criminality and illegal drugs,” they said.
They also said: “the chilling effect of the recent extreme measures is now being suffered – the killings that have happened during the pandemic, the mass arrest of persons freely exercising their opinions in the guise of violating physical distancing regulations, the apparent singling out of a broadcast network for personal piques, among others.”
Named respondents in their petition were the President, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the chairperson of the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC).
Gabriela raised three arguments in its petition. It claimed that the definition of terrorism in RA 11479 “gives its implementing body, the Anti-Terrorism Council, unbridled discretion and give it room to implement the law as an ‘arbitrary flexing of the government muscle’ against its perceived enemies.
It also alleged that the written authority from the ATC to arrest a person suspected of terrorism without a valid warrant of arrest issued by a judge after finding probable cause that a crime has been committed is “an intrusion into the exclusive judicial function and thus violates the principle of separation of powers.”
At the same time, RA 11479 in its entirety “violates the constitutionally protected right to speech, expression and association, and other liberties.”
The 16 other cases against ATA were those filed by the group of lawyer Howard Calleja and former education secretary Armin Luistro, under docket number 252258; Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, 252579; the group of Law Dean Mel Sta. Maria and several professors of the Far Eastern University (FEU), 252580; the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives led by Bayan Muna Party-List Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate, 252585;
Former head of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel Rudolph Philip B. Jurado, 252613; two labor groups represented by the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) and the Pro-Labor Legal Assistance Center (PLACE), 252623; the group of former members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission Christian S. Monsod and Felicitas A. Aquino and their group from the Ateneo Human Rights Center, 252624;
The Party-List organization Sanlakas, 252646; several labor groups led by the Federation of Free Workers, 252702; Jose Ferrer Jr., 252726; the group of cause-oriented and advocacy organizations led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, 252733; the group of former SC Associate Justices Antonio T. Carpio and Conchita Carpio Morales, 252736;
The group of Ma. Ceres Doyo and former Constitutional Commission members Florangel Rosario Braid and Professor Edmundo Garcia, 252741; National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, 252747; Kabataang Tagapagtanggol ng Karapatan, 252755; and the group of Algamar Latiph, 252759.