The Terrorist Bill of Rights

Written on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm | by DJB

It has been noted by no less than Senate National Defense Committee Chairman Rodolfo “Pong” Biazon that the atrocities committed by units of the MILF’s Bangsomoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) under Kumander Ombra Kato and Kumander Bravo (Abdullah or Abdurahman Macapaar) are the very crime of terrorism as defined in Republic Act 9372 (The Human Security Act):

SEC. 3. Terrorism. – Any person who commits an act punishable under any of the following provisions of the Revised Penal Code:

      1. Article 122 (Piracy in General and Mutiny in the High Seas or in the Philippine Waters);
      2. Article 134 (Rebellion or Insurrection);
      3. Article 134-a (Coup d‘Etat), including acts committed by private persons;
      4. Article 248 (Murder);
      5. Article 267 (Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention);
      6. Article 324 (Crimes Involving Destruction,

    or under

      1. Presidential Decree No. 1613 (The Law on Arson);
      2. Republic Act No. 6969 (Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Control Act of 1990);
      3. Republic Act No. 5207, (Atomic Energy Regulatory and Liability Act of 1968);
      4. Republic Act No. 6235 (Anti-Hijacking Law);
      5. Presidential Decree No. 532 (Anti-piracy and Anti-highway Robbery Law of 1974); and,
      6. Presidential Decree No. 1866, as amended (Decree Codifying the Laws on Illegal and Unlawful Possession, Manufacture, Dealing in, Acquisition or Disposition of Firearms, Ammunitions or Explosives)

thereby sowing and creating a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand shall be guilty of the crime of terrorism and shall suffer the penalty of forty (40) years of imprisonment, without the benefit of parole as provided for under Act No. 4103, otherwise known as the Indeterminate Sentence Law, as amended.

Section 3 above defines the Crime of Terrorism as a kind of composite crime with three elements: (1) a crime under existing laws such as murder, arson, kidnapping, robbery, crimes involving arms and explosives; (2) the creation of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic. All three elements are present, as the PNP already wants to charge the MILF-BIAF commanders with murder, arson, kidnapping, robbery and other serious crimes in connection with their recent rampages in Lanao and Sarangani provinces.

They have certainly caused widespread and extraordinary fear and panic, especially among the 240,000 reported refugees, evacuees and other displaced and affected persons.  And their unlawful demand is the signing and fulfillment of that highly controverted MOA-AD.  In addition Sections 4, 5, and 6 define terrorist conspiracies, accomplices and accessories. So why are the authorities not jumping at the opportunity to use this fearsome new law, the much vaunted Philippine Anti-Terrorist Act, RA 9372? For example wasn’t the new law supposed to give the authorities omniscient new powers to conduct surveillance on everybody, to spy and tap the communications of the usual suspects and opposition to the administration? Well, the short answer is NO.  Unlike the old Anti-Wiretapping Law  (RA 4200) which only required the Cops to go to a Regional Trial Court for permission to intercept the phone conversations of a target suspect, terrorist surveillance operations must be reviewed, approved and managed by a special division of the Court of Appeals. And then there is that Proviso at the end:

SEC. 7. Surveillance of Suspects and Interception and Recording of Communications. – The provisions of Republic Act No. 4200 (Anti-wire Tapping Law) to the contrary notwithstanding, a police or law enforcement official and the members of his team may, upon a written order of the Court of Appeals, listen to, intercept and record, with the use of any mode, form, kind or type of electronic or other surveillance equipment or intercepting and tracking devices, or with the use of any other suitable ways and means for that purpose, any communication, message, conversation, discussion, or spoken or written words between members of a judicially declared and outlawed terrorist organization, association, or group of persons or of any person charged with or suspected of the crime of terrorism or conspiracy to commit terrorism.

Provided, That surveillance, interception and recording of communications between lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, journalists and their sources and confidential business correspondence shall not be authorized.

Now of course it is well known that Mr. Eid Kabalu, the Civilian MIlitary Affairs head of the MILF and its voluble spokesmoro, is an Attorney-at-Law and that his principal Client is none other than the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, making both, thereby, immune from authorized surveillance under the Human Security Act!  (The same holds for Al Qaeda’s Doctor Zayman al-Zawahiri and his most famous patient, Osama bin Laden). I leave to the gentle reader the task of parsing the rest of Section 7 to suck out all the marrow of patent absurdity in it. But here is the truly bizarre fact about the Human Security Act. The word IMPRISONMENT occurs in the text of the law precisely 33 times. In Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 it sentences convicted terrorists, conspirators, accomplices and accessories to varying prison terms up to 40 years long.  Heavy time. But in the 29 other instances that prison sentences are specified for violations of the provisions therein, the persons likely to be imprisoned under said provisions are law enforcement officers, government officials and their employees or associates! Typical of these provisions is Section 10, which describes how law enforcers must apply for CA judicial authorization to conduct surveillance and wire tapping of terror suspects.  Also the maximum period that may be authorized is thirty days long. Read what happens after that period expires and no case for terrorism can be filed based on the surveillance intel:

If no case is filed within the thirty (30)-day period, the applicant police or law enforcement official shall immediately notify the person subject of the surveillance, interception and recording of the termination of the said surveillance, interception and recording. The penalty of ten (10) years and one day to twelve (12) years of imprisonment shall be imposed upon the applicant police or law enforcement official who fails to notify the person subject of the surveillance, monitoring, interception and recording as specified above.

The Human Security Act is full of such “human rights protections” — mainly heavy bureaucratic and admin requirements with large monetary and severe penal sanctions against police and other law enforcement agents for noncompliance involving the manner by which they must carry out the law.  The bureaucratic, documentary, custodial, and management requirements of doing a terrorist prosecution, combined with the heavy risk of actually going to jail yourself if you make some kind of technical or administrative mistake or omission, is enough to discourage its use.

The Human Security Act has four provisions which punish terrorists with imprisonment, but over 25 provisions that potentially imprison law enforcers. Oh and it is not limited to prison terms. Here is my all time favorite in the FINES category for unproven charges of terrorism:

SEC. 50. Damages for Unproven Charge of Terrorism. – Upon acquittal, any person who is accused of terrorism shall be entitled to the payment of damages in the amount of Five Hundred Thousand Pesos (P500,000.00) for every day that he or she has been detained or deprived of liberty or arrested without a warrant as a result of such an accusation. The amount of damages shall be automatically charged against the appropriations of the police agency or the Anti-Terrorism Council that brought or sanctioned the filing of the charges against the accused. It shall also be released within fifteen (15) days from the date of the acquittal of the accused. The award of damages mentioned above shall be without prejudice to the right of the acquitted accused to file criminal or administrative charges against those responsible for charging him with the case of terrorism.

It is little more than a Terrorist Bill of Rights.  No sane law enforcer would touch it with a ten-foot pole. It is useless as a law in my opinion, sabotaged and booby trapped as it is against the Good Guys.

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About The Author: DJB says: Science IS Religion! He blogs at Philippine Commentary and The Rizalist Press

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Comments

6 Responses to “The Terrorist Bill of Rights”

  1. The EQualizer on August 26th, 2008 6:42 pm

    The MILF Must Be Designated A “Foreign Terrorist Organization”!

  2. Dean Jorge Bocobo on August 26th, 2008 7:25 pm

    NO! Not under the Philippine HSA. It’ll only protect them. Best that can be done is to prosecute their actions as ordinary crimes.

  3. cocoy on August 27th, 2008 9:56 am

    isn’t MILF already designated as a Terrorist Organization by the United States of America? Doesn’t the MILF have ties with JI?

    brings us back to the question— do we really need a law on terrorism? guess our lawmakers just jumped on to the bush bandwagon. we don’t really need a law on terrorism.

    MILF and other local terrorists should be prosecuted for their crimes. they’ve been allowed free reign for far too long.

  4. manuelbuencamino on August 28th, 2008 12:02 am

    The law places the burden on the government. As it should.

    We don’t want to copy the Americans that decided, in a state of panic after 911, that they would add a collatilla to their bill of rights, the collatilla being “all rights are guaranteed except when the President decides otherwise”. (enemy combatant)

    The HSA safeguards are there to ensure that the government stays on the straight and narrow. Unlike the Americans, our legislators had enough common sense to recognize that shotcuts are too often too tempting to resist, specially when unpopular governments are at the helm

    Those MILF commanders should be chatged under the HSA. Their protectors should also be charged. The idea is to make the HSA effective and not to bitch about how difficult it is to enforce. We live in a democracy where the rule of law is supreme, at lest that’s what we aspire. Let’s not lose sight of what we are all about because of some crazy moro commanders.

    Let’s not lose it all because of anger and fear lest we become like America where warrantless searches, arrests, and seizures can and do happen, where wiretapping and other forms of invasion of privacy are allowed, where torture is permitted, where habeas corpus, the right to an attorney, the right to confront one’s accusers are gone.

    Let’s keep our heads.

  5. retsytomaquin on August 28th, 2008 12:39 am

    Sir DJB,
    I agree with you.For a fact that the MILF are considered as Separatist group of Mindanao but
    their advocacy is only for their Ancestral domain as articulated in the controversial MOA-AD which issued by the Supreme Court with TRO. They are not like the AbbuSayaf who stands for terrorism. This MILF group has their own stand perataining to their ideology as Islam by faith.

    Although, Some of its Men really committed a terrorist act but it doesn’t mean that this group are terrorist.Hence, they are all willing to foster Peace Talks to venture Peace…….

  6. retsytomaquin on August 28th, 2008 12:45 am

    But, in order to have justification for those victims of atrocities committed by “Kato & Bravo”, It is lawful that the Philippine Soldiers must continue to engage in hunting this criminals.

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