Stop politicizing anti-terror bill

[grabehbebe]

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Palace: Stop politicizing anti-terror bill

MALACAÑANG yesterday appealed to the opposition to stop politicizing the safety and security of the people by holding off passage of the anti-terrorism bill until all the extra-judicial killings are solved.

Presidential adviser for political affairs Gabriel Claudio said the opposition is merely rationalizing and trying to justify its "proclivity for obstruction" by insisting on the resolution of extra-judicial killings before they act on the anti-terrorism bill.

He appealed to Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and other Senate members "not to politicize the urgent need" to pass the measure. "The government is doing its level best to get to the bottom of these killings, put a stop to them and punish those found guilty. With or without the problem of extra judicial killings, our country needs an anti-terror law badly in order to protect our people from the very real threat and menace of terrorism," Claudio said.

Pimentel earlier said that even without an anti-terrorism law, government is already harassing its political enemies and treating them as terrorists.

Jesuit priest Romeo Intengan, a moral theologist and co-founder with national security adviser Norberto Gonzales of the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas, yesterday took to task human rights groups for their bias in favor of communists and of making "unfair accusations and one-sided monitoring and investigation" of human rights violations.

"They are partial to the communist movement. This is why some ‘fact-finding missions’ by groups ‘friendly’ to the extreme left are no longer credible and believable," he said in a statement. He said this situation "could exasperate" government forces and "tempt" them to perform anti-insurgency measures that could violate human rights.

Intengan said soldiers and policemen are duty-bound to respect and protect human rights but this does not mean that rebel groups, particularly those fighting the government, are exempted from the same responsibility. He also said the series of killings cannot be pinned solely on state agents as he stressed that communist rebels are also known to have carried out summary executions. An AFP report placed the number of people liquidated by the communists from 2000 to 2006 at 1,227, most of them civilians.

While stressing that the state has the primary duty to defend and promote respect for human rights, Intengan said human rights groups should also be evaluated for their political connections, their likely motivation and the level of accuracy of their reports to avoid "partial" probes. – Jocelyn D. Montemayor and Reinir C. Padua

http://www.malaya.com.ph/aug14/metro1.htm


I think this bill has to be implemented now before its too late, marami nang hindi magandang pangyayari ang nagaganap sa bansa natin, if we will not do anything about it malamang mas lalala pa mga kaguluhan.

[iloveyou4ever]

Hoy e aprove na ni mga lazy nga senators!

[baron]

Sometimes they just have to justify their own inactions instead of doing what they should do. A law is very much needed especially when the 9-11 incident opened our eyes that terrorism could be very well exercised even to developed countries. The best our legislators could do is to pass a law to ensure the safety and security of the people against the terrorists. Yet, almost five years have passed, still it is a bill. More than this, they don't want to pass it.

How then can they assure the people that they are doing their part of the job when they don't want to pass this bill because of mere grandstanding?

[grabehbebe]

Villar optimistic on passage of anti-terror bill

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200608160420.htm

Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. expressed optimism yesterday that lawmakers will finally find common ground to pass the anti-terror law within the year.

Villar vowed to persuade each of the senators to thresh out their different views and approve the controversial measure.

"I am sure we will arrive at a consensus. I believe that we can achieve that, and there should be nothing to fight about. I understand the opposing views but we have to balance all these. I am sure we will have a consensus on this one," he said.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, the main proponent of the anti-terror bill, said he would force the issue and move for a vote.

"I will ask for a vote. I am just finishing the refinement of the provision, I clarified the definition of terrorism so there will be no rumbling. I’m very confident, if they want to archive it, (then) I will prohibit anybody from re-filing the bill," Enrile said.

Enrile joined Villar in claiming they both respect the opinion made by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. who raised the concern that unsolved killings of political activists should be addressed first before an anti-terror law is passed.

"I will foresee the issue, each of us is responsible to the people. I am rewriting it taking into account all the concerns of the people and I am trying to refine responsibility of the anti-terror council for the enforcement and abuses," Enrile said.

Enrile said the issue of extra-judicial killings should not be used to muddle the passage of the anti-terror law.

"Well, that is their opinion. I have my own, let their opinions be aired in the end. I am not interested in making pogi points, any damn fool can oppose it if they want it," Enrile remarked.

Enrile had blamed politics for the delay in the passage of the anti-terror bill in the Senate.

Without mentioning any of his colleagues, Enrile claimed some of them kept coming up with several "baseless" excuses in not passing the bill.

He described the opponents of the bill "as noisy people who crave publicity."

Pimentel, however, maintains the opposition is merely echoing the apprehensions of the people about the rampant and unsolved extra-judicial killings of political activists.

[istoryador]

What do they mean by stop criticising the anti terror bill.

Dont we have the right to criticize what we deemed to be objectionable measures sponsored by the government. Is this a sign of dictatorship? The anti terror bill will be used to justify extra judicial arrest and killings.

BTW, Amnesty Intl says to RP: "Shame on You" on its extrjudicial killings of activists.

[istoryador]

Australian church blames RP gov’t for deaths of Protestants

http://globalnation.inq7.net/news/br...ticle_id=15609

The Uniting Church in Australia, the third largest Christian denomination in Australia, released a report in Canberra on its investigation into the deaths over the last two years of 14 clergy and members of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines.

The report found that no one had been charged in any of the murders, and that evidence in all the deaths suggested the involvement of the Philippine police and military.

It was released a day after Amnesty International (AI) issued its own report saying the growing number of political killings in the Philippines could lead to spiraling violence as the government wages an all-out war against communist rebels.

There were 51 political killings in the first six months of this year compared with 66 for all of 2005, the London-based human rights group said in a report.

AI said the methodology of the assaults, the left-wing profile of the victims and the "climate of impunity" that has shielded the perpetrators led it to conclude "that the attacks are not an unconnected series of criminal murders but constitute a politically motivated pattern of killings."

The group also called for an independent body to investigate the killings.

The Philippine government has called the AI report unfair.

[grabehbebe]

^^^better go to another thread...

Security adviser backs Anti-Terrorism Bill


NATIONAL Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales yesterday defended a legislative proposal to extend the period of detaining suspected terrorists under the Anti-Terrorism Bill.

Gonzales called on opposition lawmakers not to be paranoid about the antiterrorism legislation, which they said might be used to harass and silence administration critics.

Gonzales, director general of the National Security Council, said that without an antiterrorism act, law enforcement authorities have no choice but to free suspected terrorists from jail beyond the 36-hour maximum period for their detention without formal charges.


source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?...s02_aug25_2006

[grabehbebe]

Lacson supports speedy passage of anti-terror law

Sen. Panfilo Lacson is fully supporting moves to speed up passage of the anti-terrorism law despite fears by some opposition colleagues that it may be used to harass anti-administration lawmakers.

Lacson also said he was "comfortable" with the proposal to allow authorities to detain terrorists or suspected terrorists for 15 days without warrants of arrest.

He noted, too, that investigators should be given more time to gather sensitive information from arrested suspected terrorists.

The present 36-hour detention period is not enough to establish enough evidence and gather pertinent intelligence information against arrested terrorists, Lacson said.

Prior to his election as senator, Lacson was chief of the Philippine National Police. It was during his term that terrorists launched the simultaneous attacks in Metro Manila now known as the Rizal Day (Dec. 30) 2000 bombings that killed more than 22 people and left over a hundred others wounded.

Security forces now fear bombings linked to the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, with a confidential security assessment report warning that two explosive experts from an al-Qaeda-linked group have arrived in Metro Manila.

In the United Kingdom, Lacson noted that the British government is supporting a detention period longer than the 15 days proposed in the country’s anti-terror bill.

Among the safeguards being reviewed by senators are provisions on securing court orders, and seizure of bank accounts and properties of suspected terrorists.

"Any police or military personnel or government law enforcement agent who has taken custody of a person suspected of a crime of terrorism, of for the crime of conspiracy to commit terrorism, of for the proposal to commit terrorism and who fails to deliver such suspected person to the proper judicial authority within the 15 days shall be guilty of the crime of arbitrary detention and shall suffer the penalty of prision mayor in its maximum period," read Section 21 of Senate Bill 2137.

However, Lacson stressed the need to put safeguards in SB 2137 titled, "An act to define and punish the crime of terrorism, the crime of conspiracy to commit terrorism, and the crime of proposal to commit terrorism, and for other purposes."

"There is a need to put in additional safeguards... (law enforcers) should be made accountable because they have greater responsibility (if this law is passed)," Lacson said.

He added that the passage of the anti-terror law will also cause amendments to the "obsolete" Republic Act 4200, or the anti-wiretapping law.

Lacson said there are some crimes listed in RA 4200 that may be incorporated in the proposed anti-terror law.


at: http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200608300411.htm