Anti-terror bill certified despite Left’s warnings

President Arroyo has certified a proposed anti-terrorism law as "urgent," her spokesman said yesterday, despite warnings from rights groups that it could be unconstitutional.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said Mrs. Arroyo’s recommendation would help speed up the passage of the anti-terror law, and showed the government was firm in its resolve to fight terrorists.

"Terrorism respects neither race nor religion. It knows no boundaries. It follows no laws and respects no constitution," Tiglao said in a statement.

Rights groups have said the proposed law includes provisions that could violate human rights and the constitution, including the power to arrest suspects without a warrant, access to suspect bank accounts and capital punishment for crimes labeled "terrorism."

"All the bills are unconstitutional for being void and ambiguous and for violating basic human rights," argued Maria Socorro Diokno, a spokeswoman for the Free Legal Assistance Group, an organization of human rights lawyers.

She said some of the provisions of the anti-terror bills could be abused by corrupt officials to "blackmail, extort or even kidnap ordinary citizens."

But Armed Forces chief Gen. Benjamin Defensor warned that Mrs. Arroyo’s efforts to quell terrorism could be undermined if a strict law was not passed.

"We need tough laws to fight terrorists. Our efforts to arrest and neutralize our enemies are relentless. But once we capture them, we need a law that will keep them captured and penalize them severely for their crimes against humanity," Defensor said.

The Senate has been conducting a public hearing on several bills seeking to draft the country’s first ever law legally defining terrorism and laying down measures on combating it.

Mrs. Arroyo has been a staunch ally of the US-led global war on terrorism and earlier this year allowed deployment of US Marines to train Filipino soldiers to fight Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels, said to be associated with the al-Qaeda network.

Abu Sayyaf militants have been partly blamed for a series of bomb attacks that hit Manila and the southern Philippines last month, killing 23 people, including a US serviceman. – AFP