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    The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 Oral Arguments

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    Mizu Lily
    The oral arguments focused on whether the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 violates the Philippine Constitution and existing laws such as the Bill of Rights. Petitioners argued that several provisions of the anti-terrorism law are vague and overbroad, punishing forms of expression like advocacy and protests. They also argued that the law fails strict scrutiny tests and tramples on fundamental rights and freedoms. However, the Supreme Court ended oral arguments without issuing a temporary restraining order against the law's implementation as requested by petitioners.

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    The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 Oral Arguments

    Uploaded by

    Mizu Lily
    233 views4 pages
    The oral arguments focused on whether the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 violates the Philippine Constitution and existing laws such as the Bill of Rights. Petitioners argued that several provisions of the anti-terrorism law are vague and overbroad, punishing forms of expression like advocacy and protests. They also argued that the law fails strict scrutiny tests and tramples on fundamental rights and freedoms. However, the Supreme Court ended oral arguments without issuing a temporary restraining order against the law's implementation as requested by petitioners.

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    The oral arguments focused on whether the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 violates the Philippine Constitution and existing laws such as the Bill of Rights. Petitioners argued that several provisions of the anti-terrorism law are vague and overbroad, punishing forms of expression like advocacy and protests. They also argued that the law fails strict scrutiny tests and tramples on fundamental rights and freedoms. However, the Supreme Court ended oral arguments without issuing a temporary restraining order against the law's implementation as requested by petitioners.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    233 views4 pages

    The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 Oral Arguments

    Uploaded by

    Mizu Lily
    The oral arguments focused on whether the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 violates the Philippine Constitution and existing laws such as the Bill of Rights. Petitioners argued that several provisions of the anti-terrorism law are vague and overbroad, punishing forms of expression like advocacy and protests. They also argued that the law fails strict scrutiny tests and tramples on fundamental rights and freedoms. However, the Supreme Court ended oral arguments without issuing a temporary restraining order against the law's implementation as requested by petitioners.

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    THE ANTI- TERRORISM ACT OF 2020 ORAL

    ARGUMENTS
    On July 3, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte signed The Anti-
    Terrorism Act of 2020 or The Republic Act No. 11479. The Republic Act
    No. 11479 allows suspects to be detained without a judicial warrant or
    arrest for 14 days and placed under surveillance for 60 days that can
    also be extended by up to 30 days by the police or military. There are
    major issues being raised against the Anti-Terrorism Law.

    The Oral Arguments focused on the purpose of the Anti-Terror law


    and how it possibly violates the constitution and other existing laws
    especially the bill of rights. Some of the petitioners have been
    characterized by state elements as aiding terrorists and some are well
    known lawyers. According to the petitioners, they have a legal standing
    to file the petitions, as the instant case concerns our bill of rights, which
    are public rights and the constitutionality of the anti-terror law is right for
    judicial review. According to Atty. Chel diokno, the provisions of Anti-
    Terrorism law violate the Bill of Rights, and since it was enacted in
    violation of the proper procedure, it was passed with grave abuse of
    discretion, amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction, and the
    Constitution has entrusted the honourable court, the duty to strike it
    down.

    The anti-terror law kills the exercise of expression by the


    petitioners since some of the petitioners have been accused as aiding
    terrorists. Atty. Chel Diokno quoted from People vs Sapla that the Bill of
    Rights should never be sacrificed on the altar of convenience, the
    malevolence mantle of the rule of men because this is not a battle
    between the petitioners and government, nor their respective concepts
    but it is a battle between the Constitution and the anti-terror law and the
    anti- terror law is running roughshod over the Constitution, particularly
    the Bill of Rights.

    Petitioners urge the court to strike it down because It is


    impermissibly vague and overbroad and fails the strict scrutiny test, it
    also tramples on our fundamental rights and freedoms because of these
    following reasons, First, The law punishes speech based on its content
    section for defining terrorism mentions advocacy, protests and mass
    actions, which are all forms of expression. Section 9 punishing inciting
    others by means of speech to commit terrorism sections 5,6,8 and 10
    punish threats and proposals to commit terrorism, training and
    recruitment of terrorists and membership in a terrorist organization, all of
    which involve speech. Second, the content based regulation of speech,
    the law comes to court with a heavy presumption of unconstitutionality
    and a heavy burden on government to prove otherwise, to discharge
    that burden. Government must prove both a compelling state interest
    and the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. Third,
    government has not met that burden and The last definition of terrorism
    is not narrowly drawn, and unnecessarily sweeps protected speech and
    conduct into its domain. According to the petitioners, what makes the
    law unpalatable is the fact that it dispenses with the requirements of a
    predicate crime, which appears to be the norm among nations and
    replaces it with acts intended to cause death, etc. Since intent is
    generally inferred from a person's acts, the law gives state agents the
    power to arrest any citizen based on their subjective impression of their
    intent and the worse, it allows the state to simply assume the existence
    of intent from the citizens acts, even if the acts themselves do not
    constitute a crime.

    Petitioners asserted that as to the vagueness and overbreadth of


    sections 5 to 14, they observe that objections fall within three general
    categories. The first category of objections argue that because of
    Section 4 new definition of terrorism, escapes, consistent meaning,
    other provisions become vague as well because If we are not sure what
    terrorism is, then we can't be sure also what inciting or proposing it
    covers. Petitioners also assailed Section 26 amounting to actual
    deprivation of property and section 36 because these sections violate
    the principle of separation of powers, due process and the constitutional
    right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

    Petitioners explained why various sections of Ra 11479 violate the


    constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws.
    The law is constitutionally invalid because it suffers from over breadth
    because the law punishes any, including acts which were perfectly
    innocent when done for as long as the anti terrorism Council, acting as
    star chamber judges imputes vaguely defined terrorists, intentions and
    purposes on the suspect. The provision on bailable offences, for
    example, for inciting or proposing to commit terrorism, which are
    punishable by 12 years, and therefore bailable is also an illusion
    because these acts also constitute the same acts under Section 4,
    which is penalized with life imprisonment.
    According to the petitioners the Anti- Terrorism law is
    unconstitutional because it failed to respect and protect the rights and
    freedom of the people especially moros and indigenous people because
    they have been victims of prejudice, racial profiling, red tagging and red
    baiting. They are also victims of human historical injustice, massive land
    grabbing, structural discrimination, human rights violations are being
    committed against them, especially the leaders of moros and
    indigenous people. On May 17, 2021, The Supreme Court ended the
    oral arguments against Anti- terrorism Act of 2020 without resolving the
    petitioners’ plea for the issuance of the temporary restraining order
    against the implementation of the law despite having more than 20
    petitioners assailing its provisions.

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