Several groups representing indigenous peoples in the country on Friday filed with the Supreme Court (SC) the 26th petition against the alleged unconstitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) under Republic Act No. 11479.
Three members of the groups alleged that they have been included in the government’s “list of terrorists” under the 2007 Home Security Act which ATA repealed last July 3 when President Duterte signed the new law.
The three – Beverly Longid, Windel B. Bolinget, and Johanna K. Carino – said ATA will prevent them from performing their advocacy work “and would result in our arrests and prosecution, even of our loved ones, in the light of RA 11479’s exemption of relatives from criminal liability for harboring a person suspected of terrorism.”
“Thus, the mere living with a red-tagged family member is considered a criminal offense under the new law," they stressed.
They and their co-petitioners asked the SC to declare RA 11479 “null and void” and to prohibit the government from implementing it.
Longid is the international solidarity officer of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KATRIBU), a national alliance of indigenous peoples’ organizations in the Philippines.
Bolinget is the chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance (CPA), while Carino is the co-chairperson of the SANDUGO Alliance of Moro and Indigenous Peoples for Self Determination.
The other petitioners are Samira Gutoc, chairperson of AkoBakwit; Amirah Ali Lidasan of the Moro-Christian Peoples Alliance (MCPA); Abdul Hamidullah Atar, the Sultan of Marawi; Lumads Nora P. Sukal, Jumoring Bandilan Guaynon, Jeany Rose L. Hayahay, and Lorena Bay-ao, a Lumad leader; Nora P. Sukal, leader of the B’laan indigenous community; Jumoring Bandilan Guaynon, a Lumad tribal chieftain; Jeany Rose L. Hayahay, a Lumad community volunteer teacher; Teresa dela Cruz; Drieza A. Lininding, chairperson of the Moro Consensus Group; Francisca Tolentino, coordinator and spokesperson of Bai Indigenous Women’s Network in the Philippines; Chad Errol Booc, a volunteer teacher; and Judith Pamela Pasimio, coordinator of LILAK/Purple Action for Indigenous Women’s Rights Inc.
Named respondents in the petition are the Senate, House of Representatives, the Anti-Terrorism Council, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, several Cabinet secretaries, and the executive director of the Anti-Money Laundering Council.
Among the provisions of RA 11479 they challenged as unconstitutional were the vague provisions in the law like the definition of terrorism, acts constituting terrorism; overbreadth as applied to penal statutes; imposition of punishment without due process of law; surveillance which violates the right against unreasonable searches and seizures; arrests of persons merely on suspicion; extended custodial detention without filing charges.
“The passage of RA 11479 will even exponentially increase the instances of this red-baiting on three grounds: its vague provisions, its disregard for the context of the indigenous peoples, and its giving more power to State forces, most of whom have been at the forefront of the abuses against the indigenous peoples,” they said.
“Marginalized sectors such as indigenous and Moro peoples, whose participation in democratic processes ought to be secure when they defend their land and rights or manifest their dissent to policies that further marginalize them, are often met with militarization and violations,” they said.
“The labels ‘terrorist’ and ‘insurgents’ have become the catch-all pretext to legitimize attacks on them. Far from a law that protects, RA 11479 legitimizes the structural violence already perpetuated against them and is repugnant to constitutional values,” they added.