After protests against the controversial anti-terrorism law, several cloned Facebook accounts were created on the platform. other similar exercises of civil and political rights” may be considered terrorism if such acts are intended to cause death and serious physical harm and to create a security risk. The SC partially upheld the applications and invalidated the phrase “not intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person, to endanger the life of a person or to create a serious risk to public security” in the reservation referred to in Article 4. Many Filipinos, whose mass protests toppled a dictator three decades ago, are wary of such an encroachment on their rights. And the court essentially said that activism is not terrorism. In the Philippines, the Duterte government`s war on drugs has reportedly led to widespread abuses of power and murders in the thousands. There was one notable exception. The court removed part of a provision defining what constitutes terrorism and declared it too broad because it could have interpreted terrorism as including the exercise of civil rights such as advocacy, protests and work stoppages. The court also declared unconstitutional article 25 of the law, which allows an anti-terrorism council appointed by the president to accept requests from other organizations, including international organizations, to designate individuals or groups as terrorists. Greenpeace`s Southeast Asia office has been pushing for the repeal of the 2020 anti-terrorism law because of its “comprehensive definition of terrorism,” which it says could be misused to suppress dissent. [71] By granting the government “excessive and unchecked powers,” the human rights organization Amnesty International said the law “remains deeply flawed and subject to abuse by government agencies.” Human rights defenders and civil rights activists are particularly concerned about provisions prohibiting incitement to terrorism, which they believe could be used to criminalize certain forms of speech.
The Supreme Court also upheld article 29 of the Act, which gives the Counter-Terrorism Council the power to order the arrest of suspected terrorists and detain them for up to 24 days. “We reiterate that Republic Law No. 11479 underlines our commitment to seriously fight terrorism and uphold the rule of law,” he said in a statement. The Anti-Terrorism Act 2020 repeals the Human Security Act 2007 and amends some of the provisions and definitions of terrorism. [42] Senator Panfilo Lacson, one of the main authors of the Anti-terrorism Act, 2020, said the Human Security Act, 2007 was a “dead letter law” because it was “severely underutilized” because it resulted in only one convicted criminal and only one prescribed organization, Abu Sayyaf. [43] Thirty-seven petitions have been filed challenging the constitutionality of the anti-terrorism law, which has been described as “vague” by critics and can be subject to abuses and human rights violations. .