Students joined various quarters in urging the Supreme Court to reject the Anti-Terror Law.
The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) strongly condemned the Anti-Terror Law as it is “obviously used by the state to silence critics and to further narrow the people’s democratic spaces.”
The first day of oral arguments transpired at the Supreme Court on Tuesday wherein seven lawyers including Atty. Neri Colmenares, Atty. Chel Diokno, Representative Edcel Lagman, Atty. Evelyn Ursua, Atty. Alfredo Molo, former Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz and Moro lawyer Algaman Latiph faced the interpellations of Justice Rosmari Carandang, Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Justice Marvic Leonen.
The lawyers challenged the “terror law” and the unconstitutionality of its provisions. There were 37 petitions from different human rights advocate, lawyers, religious organizations, students and school administrators and individuals were filed to denounce Anti-Terror Law and most of these petitions seek the issuance of restraining order on the implementation of the law and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).
NUSP noted that SC reiterated that its court should not be treated as a political department - additionally it demanded concrete facts and cases as to why petitioners and the broad masses consider Anti-Terror Law unconstitutional.
However, NUSP National President Jandeil Roperos countered this, noting that the Anti-Terror Law was “clearly and without a doubt, political” as it is “weaponized by the Duterte regime to prolong the fascist dictator’s stay in power along with his allies and cronies.”
“With the passing of ATL, the state has criminalized dissent, the series of illegal arrests, house and office raids, and killings of progressive individuals and organizations concretized this fact,” Roperos alleged.
“At the very core, this law is all about politics and harboring power that the state uses against the Filipino people, especially against the marginalized sector,” she added.
NUSP also noted that the definition of terrorists and terrorism was vague in its sections, and this vagueness “will only favor the fascist-dictator regime of Duterte and clearly eradicate the distinction” between actual terrorism and exercising democratic rights.
“As we face a new dictator, students and student leaders must stand tall, denounce this law and join the toiling masses in its fight against tyranny, fascism and dictatorship,” Roperos said.
For the NUSP, “true terrorism is committed by the state forces” initiated by no less than the President himself.
“With the blessing from the Commander-in-Chief, military forces went on killing sprees and illegal arrests against Lumads, Tumandoks and other indigenous people’s groups, peasants from different regions in the countrysides and activists and critics residing in the urban areas,” Roperos alleged.
Roperos added that the President - with his military and police will - “use and abuse” the Anti-Terror Law to “justify their bloodthirst” since it will now be “easy to tag dissenters as reds and designate them as part of terrorist groups, by doing so, silencing them is justified.”