Anti-terror bill among Senate priorities in 2007

The anti-terror bill pending in the Senate will be one of the priority measures once Congress resumes regular session next year, two opposition senators said.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, in separate interviews, said the country needs the new anti-terror bill by next year.

The bill is awaiting second and third reading in the Senate.

Pimentel said he was happy that the recommendations of the opposition were heard and approved by Enrile during their hours-long deliberation just before Congress adjourned last Dec. 22.

Pimentel represented the position of opposition senators regarding the bill. This prompted the Senate to reduce to three days or 72 hours the allowable detention period without warrant for suspected terrorists who will be the subject of raids or arrests by the country’s law enforcement agencies.

Enrile, principal author of the bill, remains optimistic that the bill will be approved into law by January shortly after they resume session on Jan. 22.

"The period for warrantless arrests will be three days, and then any malicious detention will mean the government will have to pay P50,000 a day for the period of detention of any person detained," he said.

Enrile had crafted a bill that would allow a 15-day detention without a warrant of arrest for suspected members of terror groups. During interpolations, the period allocated for warrantless arrest was reduced to five days, then to three days.

"There is no more obstacle to it… The anti-terror bill is not intended for any particular period. Election or no election, it is needed. I don’t think you can use it for any violence in connection with the election unless there is," Enrile said, when asked if the bill will be passed into law by January.

To avoid abuse of human rights, Enrile said the senators "tried our best to define the crime, an ordinary individual reading it who understands English will understand what it is… (It is) very, very strictly constructed because the crime being punished is being definitely defined."

Based on the reconciled amendments, Enrile said the law enforcement body concerned will be have to pay P50,000 per day in damage fees for the wrongful sequestration of the assets of an individual who is later found not to be a terrorist.

"These are all in place," he said.

Enrile said he has agreed to remove a controversial provision on the definition of the term "terrorism" in the bill, which says "to advance, propagate, and promote political, religious and ideological beliefs."

The proposed bill now defines terrorism as activities that tend "to sow and create a condition of widespread extraordinary (fear)… and panic among the population to coerce the government to do or to give in to an unlawful demand," he said.

Enrile allayed fears of non-government and human rights organizations on possible abuses.

"They were conferring with Senator Pimentel… I don’t think they can write a law better than what we have written to protect anybody, not just them," he said.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago stressed the need to balance the need to neutralize terrorists with preventing the abuse of the human rights or civil liberties of the people.