‘Weaponizing’ anti-terror laws against dev’t workers

“Help! We need help!”

Like fishermen struggling in the waters of the open sea after the capsizing of their boats, human rights workers are crying out to be rescued from the Philippine government’s apparent determination to stop them from carry out their legitimate, and necessary, work.

The alarming “weaponization” of the country’s recently-enacted anti-terrorism legislations against development workers in the Philippines was brought to the world’s attention at the ongoing 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva by the Philippine UPR Watch.

UPR Watch is tasked to engage in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process of the UNHRC on the human rights situations in UN member-states. Locally, it is composed of 19 organizations, among them the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and human-rights alliance Karapatan.

As convenors of the Philippine UPR Watch, the two activist organizations appealed to four UN experts, called Special Rapporteurs, to look further into the following concerns: the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of peaceful assembly and associations and the right to development.

While the country’s UPR Watch delegation actively participated in the UNHRC sessions that began on June 18 and end on July 12, NUPL and Karapatan submitted to each of the four UN experts a “letter of allegations” outlining urgent issues.

Specifically, the UN Special Rapporteurs were told about the freezing of the bank accounts and the filing of trumped-up terrorism financing cases against long-standing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with proud track records.

Cited were the Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNet) in Cebu, the Leyte Center for Development (LCDe) in Tacloban City, the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center (CDRC) in the National Capital Region and the Paghida-et sa Kauswagan Development Group (PDG) in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.

The UN experts were also informed that leaders of the Cordillera People’s Alliance have been designated as “terrorists” by the Anti-Terrorism Council, the implementing body of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

“The sinister motives in the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act (RA 11479) and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Law (RA 10168) are now in full view,” said human rights lawyer Maria Sol Taule, Karapatan’s legal counsel and co-head of the Philippine UPR Watch delegation.

The targeted institutions “provide essential and life-saving services and aid to the poor and distressed rural communities, which are often neglected or disregarded by the Philippine government,” she pointed out.

“Now,” she added, “they are being systematically targeted” for alleged terrorism financing. By slapping them with trumped-up charges and freezing their bank accounts and assets, Taule stressed, the government denies the rural poor communities they serve of basic services that the state fails to provide.

Take for instance the CDRC. Since 1984, the CDRC has been providing food aid, emergency response, rehabilitation support and capacity-building for disaster preparedness and mitigation measures for more than 11 million beneficiaries. It has pioneered in community-based disaster management in the country.

In the case of the LCDe, it promptly responded during the first four months after Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) – one of the most powerful and destructive typhoons in history – hit the Philippines in November 2013. This NGO is credited for providing immediate and sustained aid to at least 23,000 families in Eastern Visayas. It handed out food, shelter kits, mats, blankets and cash aid and enabled the construction of new houses to replace those destroyed by Yolanda, as well as providing livelihood support to the affected families.

Meanwhile, according to Karapatan, at least 112 human rights defenders and development workers are facing or have faced trumped-up criminal complaints/charges falling under the vague provisions of the anti-terrorism law that had been questioned before the Supreme Court.

The charges were usually based on perjured testimonies, such that a number of these cases were dismissed by the trial courts. Fake witnesses merely followed the script drawn up by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) or the Anti-Terrorism Council, Taule surmised.

Based on these questionable charges, she added, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has been ordering the freezing of the bank accounts both of the accused organizations and individuals without due process.

Thus, there is strong basis both for demanding the dismissal of the trumped-up charges and the junking of the anti-terrorism law and the anti-terrorism financing legislation, Taule concluded.

At the same time, President Marcos Jr. was urged by Katribu, the national association of the country’s indigenous peoples, to act favorably on the recommendations submitted in the report to the UNHRC 56th session by Ian Fry, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.

Fry made his report after a 10-day visit to the Philippines in November 2023, during which he met with various government officials, UN agencies in the country, civil society organizations and indigenous people’s organizations and communities. He made a round of Metro Manila, including Valenzuela, and visited Leyte (Tacloban, Abuyog and Baybay) and Iloilo, including Calinog.

Fry recommended the imposition of a moratorium on environmentally destructive projects, especially those affecting ancestral lands, large-scale mining operations and mega-dam projects that pose severe risks to the environment and livelihood, cultures and human rights of indigenous people.

The recommendation was strongly endorsed by Katribu through its spokesperson Beverly Longid. She specifically mentioned the Kaliwa Dam project that threatens to submerge the communities of 5,000 IPs and the livelihood of more than 100,000-plus people in Rizal and Quezon provinces.

In his report, Fry called attention to the role of the NTF-ELCAC in the implementation of the anti-terrorism law that infringed on the rights of environmental defenders, IPs, peasants, women and LGBTQ, among others, who challenged and opposed big destructive mining and projects such as dams and land reclamations from the sea.

Not surprisingly, Fry recommended the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC and the repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Act.