Joma says terror bill will lead to GMA downfall

BAGUIO CITY — Exiled communist rebel leader Jose Maria

Sison is happy with the Anti-Terror Act because he believes it will ultimately lead to the government’s downfall.

A day before Sison’s declaration, Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal, Communist Party of the Philippines spokesman, ordered the New People’s Army to intensify attacks against government forces to protest Congress’s enactment of the Anti-Terror Bill.

In a statement via e-mail from the Netherlands, Sison said like the Marcos regime, the administration "will ultimately fall in disgrace by using the Anti-Terror Act to terrorize the people."

Sison, who has been in exile the Netherlands for more than 15 years, said many political activists and people who would otherwise stay in the legal political struggle are pushed to join the armed revolution and seek justice for wrongs done to them.

"The draconian regime can do a lot of repression and harm to the

people, but unwittingly it incites and drives the broad masses of the people and the revolutionary forces to wage the armed revolution for national liberation, democracy and justice more fiercely than ever before."

Sison called the Anti-Terror Act a bill of attainder, which criminalizes and punishes individuals on the basis of guilt by association.

"The malicious intent of the Anti-Terror Act is to unleash state terrorism with impunity and create a climate of fear without the need of any proclamation to declare martial law," he said.

Sison said the law targets not only the CPP, NPA and National Democratic Front of the Philippines, but the opposition, dissenters and the independent media. – Artemio Dumlao