Hiked use of anti-terror law under Marcos Jr.’s regime

Since International Human Rights Day is being observed on Monday, let’s look now into the performance of the Marcos Jr. administration on these issues. The picture I’ve seen is worrisome, to say the least.

During the first six months of this year, the human rights alliance Karapatan observed, the government has increasingly weaponized the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 and the Terrorism Financing and Suppression Act (TFSA) of 2012 against human rights defenders, political activists and other dissenters.

This has resulted in the shrinking of civic space and the “critical deterioration of the human rights situation in the country.” During the period, Karapatan noted, at least 112 activists have faced complaints or charges in court based on the ATA and TFSA, which it described as “evil twin” legislations birthed under the Duterte regime.

Amid the rightful optimism raised by hopes that former president Duterte may finally have to face the International Criminal Court, there was another development that attracted less attention than it deserves.

Last Sept. 27, the United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, invoking her mandate by the UN Human Rights Council, wrote to the Office of the President about the result of her recent official visit to the Philippines.

Khan brought to Malacañang’s attention the information she had received concerning allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arrests and arbitrary detentions, strategic lawsuits against public participation and judicial harassment. (There’s now an acronym – SLAPPS – to designate lawsuits meant to dissuade government critics from continuing to produce negative publicity.)

These acts have targeted journalists, human rights defenders and activists “in retribution or in connection with their work and the exercise of their right to freedom of opinion and expression, or an attempt to curtail such rights,” she wrote.

Khan also noted the “widespread ‘red-tagging,’ criminalization and vilification to which several news media organizations, civil society organizations and their members are subjected to, and the instances of intimidation, harassment, judicial prosecution, deprivation of liberty and the violent attacks that often follow this targeting.”

If confirmed to be accurate, several of the allegations would be inconsistent with the Philippines’ obligations under Article 10 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Should they be confirmed, she added, the allegations could further amount to violation of five articles of the ICCPR that she identified. The Philippines ratified the Convention on Oct. 23, 1986.

Khan pointed out that the cases she specifically mentioned were merely among the hundreds of complaints she received while she was here, indicating a “wide pattern of violations” that Philippine authorities need to consider seriously so that effective measures might be taken to remedy them.

In its January-June 2024 Monitor, Karapatan described as a “deceitful Janus-faced move” Marcos Jr.’s directive to the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC, the implementing arm of the ATA), issued on Dec. 6, 2023.

The directive was to maintain the “terrorist” status of the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP) just eight days after the government announced its “interest” to pursue the GRP-NDFP peace talks, which Duterte arbitrarily “terminated” in 2019. That “interest” pertained to a consensus achieved with the NDFP in discreet talks in Oslo, Norway, announced via a joint statement on Nov. 28 last year.

The directive, which neither builds confidence nor creates a conducive atmosphere for peace negotiations, “puts serious doubt on the Marcos Jr. regime’s sincerity in achieving a just and lasting peace for the country,” Karapatan lamented.

I agree. The presidential directive to the ATC practically sabotaged the momentum towards resuming the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, expected by peace advocacy groups to begin in the first quarter of 2024. A year has already passed, yet no word has come from the Marcos regime of ever pushing the peace talks.

One need not wonder why the anticipated resumption went kaput. The National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) opposed it. Marcos Jr. has headed the task force since he occupied Malacañang in July 2022. He took over from Duterte who created it in December 2018 through Executive Order 70, and began implementing it in January 2023.

The NTF-ELCAC has been blamed for the mounting human rights violations over the past six years, leading to the growing local and international calls for its abolition. Ignoring this, Marcos Jr. has refused to dismantle it since even before running for president in 2022, and continued funding for it until now. He even refuses to acknowledge that NTF-ELCAC is notorious for its red-tagging propensity.

Marcos Jr. must take heed of the Supreme Court’s ruling last May that red-tagging is a “threat to a person’s life, liberty and security.”

This is how the task force operates, according to Karapatan: “It profiles activists and other dissenters, subjects them to threats, harassment and intimidation and then effects their fake surrender. Those who refuse to join the treacherous charade get to be illegally arrested on trumped-up charges, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared or killed extrajudicially. Through the task force, the Armed Forces of the Philippines orchestrates military operations in the countryside, enforcing hamlets and de facto martial law in peasant communities.”

Today, the NTF-ELCAC remains “front and center in the Marcos Jr. regime’s counterinsurgency drive, leading the assault in targeting communities for heightened militarization and escalating human rights violations.”

During the first half of this year, the human rights watchdog documented 105 extrajudicial killings and 12 cases of enforced disappearance.

Meantime, the AFP has been resorting increasingly to artillery strikes and aerial bombings in its counterinsurgency operations against the New People’s Army, while repeatedly claiming that the NPA’s guerilla forces have been “strategically defeated.”

Are they doing this in furtherance of “development aggression,” as some have said?  Are there plans to “develop” or “clear” the land for property giants, mining corporations, etc.?