Saturday, August 18, 2007 HSA powerful law, not toothless, says Pimentel
TWO legislators visited Cebu yesterday to speak with students on their doubts over the Human Security Act, exactly a month after the law took effect.
Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquiel believes that the government can choose to live without the new law and use its funds instead on other options to address “manifestations” of terrorism.
The funds are sufficient for the government to look into social reforms like professionalizing the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, she added.
“Why spend so much energy implementing RA 9372 when we could use these energies in peace negotiations and protecting our rights?” Hontiveros-Baraquiel said.
In a forum organized by the Carolinian Political Science Society at the University of San Carlos (USC), she commented that the roots of terrorist acts in the country are political alienation and economic marginalization.
“But there are other roots that are internal in each country. And because of these, people are desperate to take extreme actions,” she added.
“There is a lack of respect for the plurality of cultures. Our resources are neglected and exploited. Our government is clinging to a bankrupt national security framework by damaging opportunity costs instead of converting resources into peace dividends,” said Hontiveros-Baraquiel.
In a separate forum at USC’s Buttenbruch Hall, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. pointed out his personal reservations on the law.
“The HSA was crafted in an environment of instability. Also, since roughly 97 percent of the 100 amendments were accepted, one of my fears is that the act would be used by an ill-motivated and weak-kneed administration to harass opponents and even mere critics of the policies of the government,” Pimentel said.
He added that three committee hearings of the bill were insufficient to tackle such a complex subject matter.
Pimentel also disagrees with Rep. Pablo Garcia (Cebu, 2nd district), who described the anti-terrorism law as “toothless.”
“Wa tingali mabasa og maayo ni Pabling ang balaod (Pabling may not have read the law thoroughly),” said Pimentel who, before the USC forum, discussed Republic Act 9372 with students of the University of the Philippines Cebu College yesterday morning.
Garcia is chairman of the House committee on the revision of laws.
Unlike him, Pimentel said the law is powerful enough for him to describe it as one of the “most critical” items of legislation in the country.
“There is much to fear in this law,” he said.
Some members of the Muslim community in Cebu and some youth groups expressed their intention to file a petition before the Supreme Court to question whether the law is constitutional.
Aaron Pedrosa, spokesperson of Sanlakas youth, said the law is too powerful and potentially endangers those who are critical of the government.
Others worry that under the law, anybody can be easily tagged a terrorist, but at the same time, it may not be enough of a deterrent against terror.
“We want to come up with a law nga mamaak gyud (that bites) but the penalty imposed for such crime is only reclusion perpetua or 20 to 40 years in prison,” said Ustadz Najeeb Razul. (NRC/KNT)
