MANILA, Philippines — Progressive women’s group Gabriela on Friday brought to the Supreme Court the 19th legal challenge against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
Gabriela joined the growing number of petitioners asking the tribunal to restrain the government from implementing, and to strike down as null and void, the entirety of Republic Act 11479.
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The group said that the new anti-terrorism law “would render all 36 years of Gabriela working for the rights and interests of marginalized women as an act of terrorism.”
They warned that this will not stop with just their group: “The terror will undoubtedly spread, the chilling effect magnified a hundred thousand times over, to every woman, every citizen, who does and shall still find the voice to assert her right and dignity as a woman, to speak truth to power because it will become a necessity for her survival.”
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"If not declared void at the onset, the continued effectivity of RA 11479 will legalize the illegal and baseless acts of public respondents that caused and continue to cause injury to Petitioners,” they said.
Gabriela pointed out that the determination of the nature and context of acts that fall under terrorism is left to the discretion of law implementers. “With the foregoing dissection of the law’s definition, it becomes clear that terrorism, as defined under Section 4 of RA 11479, is a crime of attributed intent and purpose. It exists solely in the minds of the implementers of the law,” they said.
Due to the broad and vague definition of terrorism, “any form of support to organizations unfairly tagged as terrorists is now criminalized as providing material support to terrorists.”
They also argued that the vagueness of the definition of terrorism is beyond saving of an Implementing Rules and Regulations—currently being drafted by the justice department.
“Hence, one’s acts may constitute terrorism when the law’s implementers adjudge them to be so. One does not know what acts constitute disobedience of the law. One does not know when and why she or he had become a terrorist,” they said.
“Until it is too late,” Gabriela added.
This thus gives the Anti-Terrorism Council, where Cabinet members with history of red-tagging sit, “unbridled discretion” in enforcing the law.
Gabriela implored the court to take notice that it has long suffered from “harassment, red-tagging, vilification and case filing” but state agents, including those from the National Task Force-End Local Communism Armed Conflict.
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“According to the NTF-ELCAC, Petitioner Gabriela is a terrorist or communist-terrorist group or a front thereof,” they said. These very people will sit as the Anti-Terrorism Council that can authorize law enforcers to detain a person up to 24 days without judicial charge.
“Petitioners are terrorized because the continued implementation of the law will only further endanger their life, liberty, security and property,” they also said.