Thursday, July 26, 2007 Editorial: Give RA 0372 a chance
REPUBLIC ACT 9372, otherwise known as the Human Security Act (HSA), took effect last July 15 despite opposition coming from champions of human rights and cause-oriented groups. The law is the government's newest response to the growing threat of terrorism, despite misgivings on the part of the law's detractors on its possible abuse by implementors.
While it was expected all along that human rights groups would be in the forefront of the opposition to the law (and for good reason), those who fear the Human Security Act the most are obviously the home-grown communists, left-leaning militants as well as islamic separatists who regard the HSA as a threat to their own respective agenda.
The Supreme Court, however, has taken cognizance of the opposition to HSA to ensure that respect for human rights "shall be absolute and protected at all times" and "shall not be prejudiced."
Thus the High Court has designated nine divisions of the Court of Appeals (CA) to handle cases involving the crimes of terrorism or conspiracy to commit terrorism as defined in the Human Security Act of 2007.
To show that the Supreme Court means business, it has assigned three divisions in Metro Manila and Luzon, three in the Visayas and three in Mindanao. The High Court foresees a deluge of human rights cases being filed around the country arising from the implementation of HSA, hence the need to spread out such special courts to expedite them.
It will be the height of naivety to assume that there will be no violation of human rights when the full force of RA 9372 is brought to bear on suspected terrorists. But the fear of many that the law could be abused is no reason to junk it, for that would only encourage the real terrorists in our midst to do their thing with impunity.
The correct thing to do, in the face of the real threat of terrorism to our way of life, is to give the Human Security Act of 2007 a chance to prove its worth. It may yet end up terrorizing the terrorist, who knows?
