Criticisms:

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 (Senate
Bill No. 2187). Thus, the Human Security Act exists as an instrument of counter terrorism as
opposed to human security policy.
It is claimed that the Act is unconstitutional and that it is a move to get continued US support
for the Arroyo administration and a move to suppress the most effective critics of the
administration;
It is also argued that the Act will curtail the rights of Filipinos;
The definition of terrorism used in the Act is so broad and vague that it could be used to
curtail legitimate acts of protest;

President Arroyo initiated the act in order to rein in the Abu Sayyaf militants as well as to
enhance the power of the prosecution. Initiatives have been taken in the past by the
Philippines government to counter terrorism, but it has failed to prosecute terror suspects.

The Philippines Human Security Act violates international law

Monday 29 October 2007 at 9:20 AM ETedited by Andrew Wood

H. Harry Roque Jr. [Professor, University of the Philippines College of Law; Director, Institute
of International Legal Studies at the U.P. Law Center]: "Due to the inherent problems in
defining terrorism, crimes ordinarily punished by the penal laws are now sought to
be punished under the PHSA with a corresponding increased penalty with no clear test or
measure when the penal laws or the PHSA applies. Also, the powers granted to the courts to
classify terrorist groups under the PHSA in the absence of a clear definition of terrorism also
violates due process.

As such it is also posited that elevation of ordinary crimes into acts of terrorism punishable
by much higher penalties would also raise concerns of equal protection due to the fact that
such a distinction exponentially raises the penalty while making conviction easier due to the
malum prohibitum nature of crimes punished under the PHSA. Simply stated, it is violative of
equal protection in that the bill makes an unclear distinction then punishes those falling under
this definition much more severely. As such the PHSA would raise serious concerns of equal
protection especially in light of the difficulty in properly defining terrorism.

Also due to the difficulty in defining terrorism it is similarly odious to free association. This
could penalize many legitimate organizations including genuine independence movements
that are exercising their legitimate and ergo omnes right to self-determination. Similarly
odious to the right of free association is Section 17 of the PHSA on the power to proscribe a
terrorist organization, since one of the grounds for proscribing a terrorist organization is that
any member or members thereof have committed an act or acts of terrorism as defined in
the PHSA.

Further, the outstretched access provided by the PHSA may have a chilling effect on the
freedom of speech. The application for the interception of communications encompasses all
kinds of communications with the only proviso that such communication is because, or in
furtherance of, the ill-defined crime of terrorism. It only penalizes the unauthorized
interception of communications, which is interception of communications without judicial
authorization. This creates situation for mischief usually exploited by law enforcement
officers, where the law enforcement officer, who is not exactly the paragon of virtue in
protecting human rights, would risk violating the law given that risk to the law enforcement
officer is smaller than the advantages, i.e., catching the "terrorists". Also, as it is limited to
penalizing law enforcement personnel, companies handling communications services such as
postal, messengerial and telecommunications companies escape liability under PHSA when
they intercept communications out of cooperation or coercion of law enforcement personnel.

Under international human rights standards, the accused should normally be released
pending trial as stated in Article 9(3) International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR). Besides favoring pretrial release, international human right norms specifically bar
long periods of pretrial detention as provided by Section 19 of the PHSA. The PHSA also
creates an Anti-Terrorism Council, vesting it with vast powers without institutional safeguards
on human rights. In a country where torture is practiced and where it has not been defined,
contrary to the Convention on Torture, as a domestic crime, even 3 days detention without
judicial intervention appears to be far too long. Besides, intervention of a Judge would be
indispensable as deterrence to torture.

In sum, as in the words of Mr. Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur by the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights:

"The Philippines is a country facing many challenging issues and I wish to reaffirm that I am
fully conscious of the need to take effective measures to prevent and counter terrorism, and
of the difficulties of States in doing so without compromising the freedoms of a civil society.
However, I am concerned that many provisions of the Human Security Act are not in
accordance with international human rights standards."

STATEMENT: Human Security Act of 2007: A Draconian Measure of Insecurity and Terror
By
MINDANEWS
-
JULY 18, 2007
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Flawed to its core and hated like the regime that produced it, the HSA is the Arroyo
government's belligerent response to the growing popular resistance to its misrule. Also
known as the (anti) terrorism law, the HSA is being deplored as the regime's latest and most
comprehensive legal measure of repression and curtailment of our fundamental rights and
basic freedoms.

The Human Security Act of 2007 is riddled with grave infirmities and loopholes and
breaches the Constitution, the international human rights as well as international
humanitarian laws and principles. Its growing number of critics are calling for its outright
repeal.

A key issue against this law is the dangerously vague, encompassing and overarching notion
of "terrorism" that draws no distinction between "acts of terror" and legitimate exercise of
dissent and social protest. The fundamental principle of due process is seriously violated in
this regard. Anyone can be accused of the crime of "terrorism" that is not precisely and legally
defined. By criminalizing dissent and by drawing no distinction between legitimate acts of
protests and political actions versus common crimesthe HSA is a draconian measure of
insecurity and terror.

The HSA comes at a time, when the legitimacy of the Arroyo government is seriously being
challenged and a prevailing climate of impunity has come to characterize the regime's brazen
disregard for human rights and its gruesome record of atrocities committed against its
staunchest criticsthe social activists, human rights defenders and the left movement. We
have witnessed for instance, how the likes of Jonas Burgos , son of a press freedom and anti-
Martial Law icon could be abducted in broad daylight by suspected agents of the state and
be made to disappear until today. We have known that tens to hundreds of suspected leftist
activists were shot dead by hooded assailants astride their motorcycles.

Against this national backdrop of lawlessness and a climate of fear and terror, the Human
Security Act of 2007 or RA 9372 will open the floodgates for the wholesale violations of human
rights and civil liberties.

The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth-
Philippines (LRC-KsK/FOE-Phils.) joins the growing voices of indignation against the HSA
and the louder clamor for its repeal. Such highly infirm law has no place in a supposedly
democratic society and political system supposedly governed by the rule of law.

Given the regime's track record of mounting atrocities and human rights abuse, the
unreformed military and the police forces, the national security-mindset of the HSA's
architects and implementors and the red-baiting and labeling of groups , organizations and
individuals critical of the government's policies and actionswe have all the reasons to
doubt the so-called safeguards that the HSA contain against arbitrary acts and abuse.

Under the HSA, "terrorist acts" include political offenses and actions such as rebellion and
insurrection, thus criminalizing political dissent and actions. Suspected offenders under the
law are subject to surveillance and wiretapping, and their assets frozen. Organizations,
particularly those critical of the regime, can easily be proscribed as "terrorists" and their
members prosecuted. Thus , the new law provides for the legal justification for state and
security forces to go after the "enemies of the state" it will now call "terrorists", and this
time, replete with legal guarantees and all-out impunity.

This early, the law's architects and implementors are itching to wield the full force of RA
9372 to weigh down anyone it will conveniently call "communists" and "terrorists". This
includes even legal organizations and elected public officials that are among the most
strident critics of the regime and its harmful policies and actions.

Assault against the legitimate right to self-determination

The LRC-KsK expresses particular concern about the RA 9372's impact on the Indigenous
peoples and other vulnerable sectors whose sources of subsistence and even their whole
way of lifestand seriously threatened by the adverse impact of the GMA government's
frenzied drive to attract large-scale investors into the extractive industries such as mining,
logging and plantations.
For instance, given the regime's policy of attracting huge mining investments in resource-rich
areas all over the country , where many indigenous peoples and rural producers resideand
given the deeply flawed legal and justice system that has largely failed to give redress to the
aggrieved poorit is not hard to believe that the full weight of the law may well be used in
the guise of targeting "terrorists" and "threats to national security"in order to pacify and
silence affected communities and indigenous peoples resisting incursion of large-scale mining
into their ancestral domains.

The enforcement of the HSA runs ominously parallel with the government's announcement
to develop 23 priority mining investments areas all over the Philippines and to attract around
$7 to $10B worth of large-scale mining investments in the country by 010the last year of
the GMA's remaining presidential term. The HSA can indeed help ensure that large-scale
mining incursions will successfully bulldoze their way over the indigenous peoples' sacred and
ancestral lands.

Who can stop the regime's minions and their allies in the mining industry from subjecting
anti-mining protesters, non-government organizations and church organizations to
surveillance, witch hunt, harassmentand when all else fail, proscribing them as "terrorist"
organizations or "communist fronts"?

When indigenous peoples will put up barricades to stop huge mining equipment from
bulldozing their way into the their sacred lands and ancestral [WINDOWS-1252?]domains
what will stop the regime's local minions, in complicity with mining companiesto label
these acts of protests as "economic sabotage" and "terrorist acts"?

The HSA 2007 can thus, be used against the indigenous peoples' right to self-determination
and just struggles of local communities to assert their right, and to defend the country's
national patrimony.

May we then ask: who is terrorizing whom? Who is responsible for and promoting the
insecurity of our people? It is the height of absurdity that the very regime that has caused
the people's continued misery and sufferings, and has thus continued to fan the flames of
discontent, has now proclaimed to save the people from threats of "terrorism" and threats
to their security.

The Arroyo government is afraid of its own shadows and has no one to blame but itself for
the increasing national restiveness against its governance. It has allowed its own security and
survival to take precedence over the people's security and well-being, basic rights and
fundamental freedoms.

We say no to the Arroyo government's HSA that is passed in our name. We refuse to accept
that the Arroyo regime's need for security and survival is also our own. Instead, we call for
the repeal of the HSA and for the reversal of anti-people policies and programs that are at
the roots of armed conflicts, terrorist threats and national unrest that continue to besiege
our country and society.

It is increasingly clear to more and more people that the Human Security Act of 2007far
from providing the Filipino people the security from fear and wantis an illegal, unjust and
anti-people legislation aimed at instilling fear and paralyzing people into inaction.
The Arroyo regime should remember too well the lessons from its predecessors and from
their ill-fated policies and actions: injustice and repression begets resistance. And, nothing
can subdue the power of a united and determined people struggling for justice and defending
their rights and hard-won freedoms.