Supreme Court anti-terror law oral arguments

On July 3, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte signed The Anti-

Terrorism Act of 2020 or The Republic Act No. 11479. The Republic
Act No. 11479 allows suspects to be detained without a judicial
warrant or arrest for 14 days and placed under surveillance for 60 days
that can also be extended by up to 30 days by the police or military.
[‘There are major issues being raised against the Anti-Terrorism Law.

The Oral Arguments focused on the purpose of the Anti-Terror

law and how it possibly violates the constitution and other existing laws
especially the bill of rights. Some of the petitioners have been
characterized by state elements as aiding terrorists and some are well
known lawyers. According to the one of the petitioners, he said that
they have legal standing to file the petitions, as the instant case
concerns our bill of rights, which are public rights and the
constitutionality of the anti-terror law is right for judicial review.
According to Atty. Chel diokno, the provisions of Anti- Terrorism law
violate the Bill of Rights, and since it was enacted in violation of the
proper procedure, it was passed with grave abuse of discretion,
amounting to lack or in excess of jurisdiction, and the Constitution has
entrusted the honorable court, the duty to strike it down.

The anti-terror law kills the exercise of expression by the

petitioners since some of the petitioners have been accused as aiding
terrorists. Atty. Chel Diokno quoted from people vs Sapla that the Bill
of Rights should never be sacrificed on the altar of convenience, the
malevolence mantle of the rule of men because this is not a battle
between the petitioners and government, nor their respective concepts
but it is a battle between the Constitution and the anti-terror law and
the anti terror law is running roughshod over the Constitution,
particularly the Bill of Rights.

Petitioners urge the court to strike it down because It is

impermissibly vague and overbroad and fails the strict scrutiny test, it
also tramples on our fundamental rights and freedoms because of
these following reasons, First, The law punishes speech based on its
content section for defining terrorism mentions advocacy, protests and
mass actions, which are all forms of expression. Section 9 punishing
inciting others by means of speech to commit terrorism sections 5,6,8
and 10 punish threats and proposals to commit terrorism, training and
recruitment of terrorists and membership in a terrorist organization, all
of which involve speech. Second, the content based regulation of
speech, the law comes to court with a heavy presumption of
unconstitutionality and a heavy burden on government to prove
otherwise, to discharge that burden. Government must prove both a
compelling state interest and the least restrictive means to achieve
that interest. Third, government has not met that burden and The last
definition of terrorism is not narrowly drawn, and unnecessarily sweeps
protected speech and conduct into its domain. According to the
petitoners, what makes the law unpalatable is the fact that it dispenses
with the requirements of a predicate crime, which appears to be the
norm among nations and replaces it with acts intended to cause death,
etc. Since intent is generally inferred from a person's acts, the law
gives state agents the power to arrest any citizen based on their
subjective impression of their intent and the worse, it allows the state
to simply assume the existence of intent from the citizens acts, even if
the acts themselves do not constitute a crime.

Petitioners asserted that as to the vagueness and overbreadth

of sections 5 to 14, they observe that objections fall within three
general categories. The first category of objections argue that because
of Section 4 new definition of terrorism, escapes, consistent meaning,
other provisions become vague as well because If we are not sure
what terrorism is, then we can't be sure also what inciting or proposing
it covers. Petitioners also assailed Section 26 amounting to actual
deprivation of property and section 36 because these sections violate
the principle of separation of powers, due process and the
constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Petitioners explained why various sections of Ra 11479 violate

the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder and ex post facto
laws. The law is constitutionally invalid because it suffers from over
breadth because the law punishes any, including acts which were
perfectly innocent when done for as long as the anti terrorism Council,
acting as star chamber judges imputes vaguely defined terrorists,
intentions and purposes on the suspect. The provision on bailable
offences, for example, for inciting or proposing to commit terrorism,
which are punishable by 12 years, and therefore bailable is also an
illusion because these acts also constitute the same acts under
Section 4, which is penalized with life imprisonment.
 According to the petitioners the Anti- Terrorism law is
unconstitutional because it failed to respect and protect the rights and
freedom of the people especially moros and indigenous people
because they have been victims of prejudice, racial profiling, red
tagging and red baiting. They are also victims of human historical
injustice, massive land grabbing, structural discrimination, human
rights violations are being committed against them, especially the
leaders of moros and indigenous people.

On May 17, 2021, The Supreme Court ended the oral

arguments against Anti- terrorism Act of 2020 without resolving the
petitioners’ plea for the issuance of the temporary restraining order
against the implementation of the law despite having more than 20
petitioners assailing its provisions.