The Anti-Terror Law, at its core, is a return to draconian times, a subversion of our fundamental rights and liberties, a farcical attempt to quell an ensuing dissent from the marginalized sectors largely due to the government’s failure to respond to the needs of the people in the time of pandemic. It is a measure to safeguard the old economic and political system that is the lifeline of its current privileged and elite rule. A safeguard to the “OLD NORMAL”.
The Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc. (PMPI) believes that the “Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 is the government’s legal mantle to shield itself from the discontent of people due to a bungled response to the pandemic – their ill intervention to cope with the pandemic and to direct its indecisive state health agency, its lack of aggressive and forward plan to have massive testing and support to the frontline workers, its militaristic approach to manage people from following the lockdown rules, its lack of transparency and accountability in the use of public funds and borrowed money and its dismal and meager support to the most vulnerable sectors of society have resulted to hunger, fear, and violation of people’s rights. These are some of the issues that will be dealt with, simply as matters of peace and security by the Anti-Terror Bill.
We believe this law will further institutionalize the OLD NORMAL of putting profit over ecology and the right to health. We were witness to its partiality to profit over people, when even in the midst of the threat of the pandemic – the community of Homonhon Island, Eastern Samar and the island of Semirara fell victim to the caprices of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources – Mines and Geosciences Bureau (DENR-MGB), the Department of Energy in the case of Semirara Island, which allowed the transport of mineral ore and coal by the mining companies from these islands, despite appeal against it by the local people and local government. Through the AntiTerror Bill, we believe this administration will now have the legal basis to muscle its way through to implement development projects that are detrimental to Indigenous Peoples and the ecology like the Kaliwa Centennial Dam Project in Quezon and the Sagittarius Copper and Gold Project in South Cotabato.
WE believe the “Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020” has the potential to increase nonaccountability and non-transparency of this Administration’s in its exercise of power. This government, through its OLD NORMAL of addressing deeply rooted and complex social issues, have shown us that it can choose to be non-accountable, harsh, and punitive. In dealing with drug related issues, it has launched a “War On Drugs” program called “Operation Tokhang”, implemented in secrecy and with impunity but has yet to show substantial results of putting a stop on drug trade in the country, but instead only victimized further the poor and marginalized as EJK victims.
Put simply, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 will not address poverty, ecological destruction, and climate crisis, nor will it address our current predicament that is Covid19 and its after effects, nor will it address terrorism itself, rather, it has now created an environment of terror to silence any form of opposition, with everyone a potential suspect.
Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc. (PMPI)
6 June 2020
